Record Buying Tips

Here's 100 recommended all-analog LP reissues worth owning. The video runs two hours so unless you are masochistic, you might want to watch in shorter segments but covering 100 LPs took time! Plus there are the usual fun stories interspersed throughout. Okay, I got wrong the The Who's "Tommy"'s original issue date (I said November '68, was May '69) otherwise all of the information should be correct. Yes, too many superlatives, but that’s video!

The stereo mix of Pet Sounds issued on SACD by Mobile Fidelity and on vinyl by Capitol a few years ago is interesting and was well done, but Brian mixed it and intended it to be listened to in mono, which is how it was originally released back in 1966.

You can find a great deal of information online about matrix codes and their meaning. Unfortunately some of it is incorrect.

CES coverage will continue, but first this: the daughter of a west coast record producer who had amassed a large vinyl collection she'd inherited and wished to sell contacted me last year asking how best to do it.

Power has been restored. Thanks to all for your "warm" thoughts under the previous story. A reader and Oxfam volunteer in the UK sent a link to the Oxfam Online Shop's vinyl store. To access the vinyl store click on the "Entertainment" header.

I first visited this store in 1986 when LPs were "going away". Now they are back but Platter World is closing. The owner passed away, his daughter is running it and liquidating. All single LPs are $3.00. Most of what I saw was the usual usual and not in particularly great condition but there are always gems to be had in such an enormous stash of records and if you're looking to try some new music $3.00 will get it for you in whatever condition.

Call me crazy (and you wouldn't be the first!) but when I spend $25 or $50 on a 180 gram reissue, I want to know the source used and who did the cutting, plating and pressing. Don't you? But we don't get that vital information as often as we'd like, do we?