http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22210378

Storm Thorgerson was one of the earliest influences on my artistic development as an illustrator, graphic designer and photographer; the Hipgnosis book "Walk Away Renee", those Pink Floyd album covers (I bought "Wish You Were Here" the day it came out in 1975 - can still smell the black vinyl wrapper it had, and the sheer wonder I felt when I saw those postcards!  Sorry young 'uns but your don't get THAT with MP3s!), the generally cool, but spot-on design awareness. 

At almost 53, I see icons and heroes from my youth now beginning to drop like flies, and it reminds me of my own mortality.  As Joan Bakewell (!) said, "our time is passing".  Shit. Fuck. We were supposed to have hover cars, meals in pill form, sexy androids and infinite life by now.  Can I have my money back?

Getting old beats the alternative........

our sincere condolences.  at least ringo, sir paul, elton, mick jagger and keith richards have cheated death for so many yrs.

Quote - Getting old beats the alternative........

Brilliant!

old is a state of mind

age is a number

but real cool is eternal

Sorry to say that as for idols or just familiar names, it only gets worse. Throw in not even having the advantage of youth over evil dictators - damn you Assad and Kim Jong Un!  Being able to scare annoying children and drool over yourself without caring is pretty cool though.

Quote - ...can still smell the black vinyl wrapper it had, and the sheer wonder I felt when I saw those postcards!  ...

I can remember the smell of a new album and several of my favorite albums. I remember when album art was important and when inserts, lyric sheets, sleeves... all that was part of the package. Music was a "physical" thing. You had the album, could see the art, read the lyrics and inserts, look at the inside photos, if it had any, and sometimes they even put in special gifts to their fans. (Cheech & Chong's extra-large rolling paper... I still have mine. :D )

Today, all that physicality is gone. Owning one piece of music isn't any different than another.

PC Games are getting that way, too. No cloth maps, figurines, knick-knacks, foldouts, manuals or anything like that, these days. (Unless you plop down the $100 for the average "Collector's Edition."

Quote - Today, all that physicality is gone. Owning one piece of music isn't any different than another.

This is something I found refreshing about Anomaly, which I got a copy of recently. It's exploring ways in which physicality and virtual, digital media can intermingle...

I think you mention something else that must not be lost, or, I think humanity may be doomed...

...smell... and real smells, of real world things. Artifactual smells. Not just fake, perfumery...

Sadly though, it seems the sense of smell is something else that does diminish with age. At least for me... and is not simply being diminished culturally.

I guess this is true of all the physical senses, ultimately, though... as we bury our way through time, like interstellar earthworms, back towards that singularity from whence we came ;)

Quote - > Quote - Getting old beats the alternative........

Brilliant!

Yes! Well said indeed :)

Heh, you old git.  

Oh, I'm 54 tomorrow.  :(

Yep, buying an album was a real pleasure because you had a physical artefact.  Even CDs were better than some nebulous digital file floating around on a HD or - even worse - a cloud.

As things stand, I'll always prefer CDs to downloads, due in part to their uncompressed format.

All that said, please don't tell me vinyl sounds better than CD because it demonstrably doesn't.  Music on vinyl is incredibly compressed (that's in the musical sense of the word) and has a massively reduced dynamic range.  Granted, some CDs sound lousy and that's because, by and large, music had been transferred from masters made for vinyl which had all the compression, dynamic range reduction and EQ biasing present, or studio engineers were still using the compromises they'd gotten used to working with.  Stuff recorded for CD, or remastered for CD generally sounds much better.

But... I really miss the old album sleeves which were often works of art in themselves, as avowed in the first post.  

I'd like to have my 50 year old mind in my 20 year old body . . .

As far as music is concerned, there isn't much that interests me anymore. Getting old is odd that way. My youngest son listens to hip hop, and my eldest son listens to really weird stuff that wouldn't have appealed to me at his age.

This is a problem as old as humanity itself. The world is in constant flux, and part of that involves ageing. I'm watching my sweetheart's parents decline in dismay, knowing that 25 years from now, I'll be in their shoes--if I live that long.

Amen on the old-mind transplant wish.  The best thing about my 63-year-old mind is that it knows how to ignore useless ratshit, and knows how to be happy right here and now.

Quoting George Washington Carver:

"Look about you.  Take hold of the things that are here.  Let them talk to you. "

Every word is perfect and necessary. 

Carver was specifically advising young scientists, and it's particularly good advice in that context, but it works for life in general.  Don't fall in love with theories or numbers or philosophies.  Just let reality talk to you.

Old People Rocking Hard:

http://www.metalinjection.net/av/new-black-sabbath-song-god-is-dead-streaming-listen

Find playing Tenpole Tudor's swords of a 1000 men very loud whilst running around the room with an imaginary broadsword helps to remove this mood.

I always vowed I wouild be different to my father who always complained all the new music sounded the same and he couldn't hear the words.  With me fast approaching my 60th birthday I discovered some years ago that I had turned into my father.

"It's a pity that youth is wasted on the young."

Winston Churchill

Yeah.  Most of my favorites are now either dead or "Who dat?"  How many remember Frankie Laine, or Gogi Grant?  Les Paul has name recognition for the guitars he designed, but when he and Mary Ford were together, they were far better than Les by himself.  Nobody remembers who had the best recording of Delicado, or that it was orchestral rather than vocal.  Fewer remember Duane Eddy, or that he played a Gretch for his recordings, with pretty heavy reverb giving him the sound he was known for. 

Such are the passage of time.

Wait until you go over 70, like me.  It gets better.  Or worse.

Frankie Laine? Sanf the theme from Rawhide IIRC. The other names I remember but not anything they did in particular. Knowing I'll never get that kiss from Anette is a bummer …

Quote - Find playing Tenpole Tudor's swords of a 1000 men very loud whilst running around the room with an imaginary broadsword helps to remove this mood.

Jesus, Sir Edward of Tenpole. A world with him in  can't be all bad!

Frankie was known best for his recording of High Noon, and probably second for this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw9j2EN4TU4

Although, my personal preferences would be for this one over High Noon.  I don't believe he sang it in the movie though, although I could be wrong there.

I believe there will be many others that will have this running through their minds if they listen to it.  Picked this one because it's pretty to watch.

Turning 47 in a couple of months, aside from the after-effects of burning it at both ends and warming it up in the middle for a good 20 years I feel OK. Hell, I still get carded every once and a good day!

Certainly less adventurous physically than I was 10 years ago but I still break out the weights for a couple of three months a year to keep the young bucks in line. One thing I have noticed is an increasing disregard for bullshit, almost an involuntary thing really.

I still listen to a lot of contemporary music but this tends to be Dark Ambient, or Grindcore, or Death Metal... last time I jumped into a mosh pit was about 8 years ago at a Napalm Death show, where I proceeded to severely harm my knee. Won't be doing THAT anymore.

Quote - Frankie was known best for his recording of High Noon, and probably second for this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw9j2EN4TU4

Although, my personal preferences would be for this one over High Noon.  I don't believe he sang it in the movie though, although I could be wrong there.

I believe there will be many others that will have this running through their minds if they listen to it.  Picked this one because it's pretty to watch.

Actually, a lot of the youngers -do- know Frankie.....he did do the theme to 'Blazing Saddles' , after all (and what a stroke of genius...or deviousness....it was of Mel Brooks to let him think this was a straight up cowboy flick).

And I'm pretty eclectic when it comes to music; take the champagne stuff (ghu does it make you want to drink), the whiny-assed pseudo-gospel country crap (and living 90 minutes east of Nashville sure makes that opinion popular), and the unparsable, repetitive gangsta and any other illegible vein of rap and put them in a bag at the bottom of the Marianas Trench and I'll listen to nearly anything.

.....Although I do admit to loving to pull out the stuff from the early 60's like the Ventures, getting the kiddies to scoff at the 'simplicity' of the arranging, then shoving their faces down in the fact that back in them days, no one had synths; all that was done with basic instruments and skill.  The three and a half decades of concrete slab RSI isn't any fun, but wallowing in the Old & Devious usually beats Young & Dumb sure can be..... :P

I'm going to be 62 and I feel your pain. What I do is think young. The only thing holding me back is arthritis, LOL!

Quote - I'm going to be 62 and I feel your pain. What I do is think young. The only thing holding me back is arthritis, LOL!

I'm with you, my wife says I have the body of a 60 year old and the mind of a 12 year old,, my toys have just got bigger and more expensive over time.

It has been said:

It's easy to tell

The men from the boys.

By the sound of their voice,

and the price of their toys.

...and the mind of a 12 year old,, my toys have just got bigger and more expensive over time. Mine says 5: ) Though despite being close to the 5 o, I can still out party most teenagers, walk further than my GF's 9 year old grandson, and generally do more stuff/go more places than my neighbours in their mid 20s! Also know one lady of 83 who got a uni degree for the hell of it, another lady of 90 who plays scrabble everyday on line. Which makes me wonder, is age just a state of mind?

Well, 54 trips around the sun today and some days I can assure you age is definitely not just a state of mind.  It's also a state of arthritis and I feel every minute of my years.  Others, not so much.  

All in all, though, I still have what I believe to be an ageless outlook.  I became a dad at 50 so I guess that has something to do with it all.  

Quote - Well, 54 trips around the sun today . . .

Happy birthday, happy happy birthday, happy birthday, happy happy day. Hey!

Thanks!

As a member of 'twin nickles', or double? can get a discount at breakfast place now...;)

Think the 'youth wasted' comment might by Oscar Wilde, would have to look up. It has a lot of 'author's...;)

Get busy living or get busy dying....some prison move.

Oh I wouldn't disagree that sometimes that aches and pains can catch us up. But I still reckon a good fun state of mind* can stave off the worst of the aches and worries about door to door scythe salesmen. So happy birthday there Sam!

Funny, I have been thinking lately about pushing in the community and petitioning, for vendors to change their EULAs to allow people to will their runtimes to a friend or family member.

*"I have been thinking lately about pushing in the community and petitioning, for vendors to change their EULAs to allow people to will their runtimes to a friend or family member."*Read the Pre-Nup. Vickie gets everything. You do get to have your ashes interred in the temple though :-)

can i have the sword burried with me on the coffin?

"As things stand, I'll always prefer CDs to downloads, due in part to their uncompressed format."

SamTherapy, You can download uncompressed sound file (aiff, Wav, etc) versions of tracks, say, through itunes, and burn them to disc and the result is identical to CD... one uncompressed lossless track will consume as much space as 5 compressed lossy tracks or thereabouts. If you want to store a million of them in your pocket, ummm, I think that might be included with the Hover-car that paul mentioned :)... although a 64 gig ipod can store quite a few uncompressed tracks. Probably the real difference can only be discerned by using a combination of nice earphones and uncompressed files: it wouldn't matter how pristine the file is if it's being delivered through a sub-par device.

"can i have the sword burried with me on the coffin?" 

The sword has to stay in the stone - that way, if a handsome prince pulls it out, he can kiss you and bring you back to life - if you died from eating poisoned fruit. Otherwise, I think you have to wait until a wandering bear finds your coffin not too small, not too big but just right. Everyone lives happily ever after though.

Quote - Well, 54 trips around the sun today and some days I can assure you age is definitely not just a state of mind.  It's also a state of arthritis and I feel every minute of my years.  Others, not so much.  

All in all, though, I still have what I believe to be an ageless outlook.  I became a dad at 50 so I guess that has something to do with it all.  

I feel like I've physically aged more in the last 18 months than at any previous point in my life! Lol...

(my two monkey offspring are 18 months and 23 days old)

Mentally though, I feel reborn ;)

Quote - Funny, I have been thinking lately about pushing in the community and petitioning, for vendors to change their EULAs to allow people to will their runtimes to a friend or family member.

Strange but I have been thinking my runtimes when I have gone as well.  Like so many people I have spent a vast amount on content over the years and it seems a shame that it will be trashed when I die.  My other hobby is miniture steam railways and the engines are quite expensive but when I die they will still be used by someone.  Even f my wife does not use them (she has her own) she can sell them on and so benefit finacially, while someone else can have the pleasure of running them.  At first the cost would appear to be very different but, as I have a few engines but massive amounts of content, the amount I have spent on content easily exceeds the cost of my model engines.

I'm with Sam vis a vis CD vs MP3 players; but its more about the hearing range of the listener. Lots of people -can't- tell the difference most of the time....for whatever reason (from impacted earwax to 'Wow that shotgun was loud in the shed!'), they simply don't have the dynamic range perception. Those who do though are =very= aware of how compression schemes thicken the bottom end and erode the top to where it has all the crispness of a bag of soggy potato chips. It's fun watching the faces of those who don't know better when I put a pair of Sennheiser phones on their head and they get to listen with an absolutely flat  distortion line up to 20khz. They always reach for the bass boost first, then ask where all those high end sounds come from. A new cut? A cover that sounds almost identical?

Of course all the good compressors let you choose your damage percentage, but it's gotten to be the norm to squeeze a music file as small as you can, to get more on whatever device is being used. You might be okay with the latest hip-hop, but try and do a classical piece with full orchestra like that.... (shudder)  

Yup - likewise. I buy my music on CD.

Getting a less compressed recording is one reason. Getting something physical... sometimes something that is a nice piece of artwork... is the other reason.

Still own a bit of vinyl but no longer have a player for it.

Once the law is finally, formally amended here, regarding format shifting, I will be legally permitted to copy all my CDs into iTunes... which I will do using the lossless codec... which I think gives me a fair compromise between retaining range and gaining some file size reduction ;)

Ah, another Sennheiser fan.  Good stuff.

The comment re iTunes is correct, although I don't have an account with 'em.  As for an i-anything, I don't own one.  I don't like to be surrounded by music 24/7 and I don't - really don't - enjoy listening on teeny tiny in-ear phones, especially when I'm out buying groceries or whatnot.  I'd rather listen at a respectable volume in the comfort of me own home, when I can give the music the full attention it deserves.

Being a musician meself, I know the value of peace and quiet.  :)

MP3 compression always makes things sound like they're underwater to me, and there always seems to be very pronounced flanging on cymbals.  If I rip owt from CD it becomes FLAC or WAV.  

 Personally, I think a lot of people walk around with the bloody buds in their ears just to justify ignoring the world. Unless you superglue the things in and seal them over with wax, so much ambient environmental noise gets around them that 'listening to music' is rather ridiculous. Now if you say 'listening to music, screaming kids, yakking old ladies, ambulance sirens, dogs barking, truck engines roaring etc ad nauseum', that would be a more accurate take.

And I luuuv my Sennheiser HD 380 Pro's. Ghu knows I wouldn't dream of mixing music or foley without them. He who doth not listen to mastering with as close to flat freq response headphones or speakers will be rudely stunned by the difference his finished product has from what he thought it was.

Plus the things are so comfortable you can wear them for hours..... :D 

For you audiophiles, here's a fascinating article I ran across while looking for something else. It's specifically about the [Non] value of 24-bit/192kHz music downloads but includes a wealth of information and sample files r.e. digital audio compression, sound quality etc.

Music Downloads ...and why they make no sense