Amazon to Let Music Fans Trade CDs for Store Credit

12 Apr 2012 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts

CD

Used CDs have just been added to the list of goods accepted by Amazon.com’s Trade-In program, Smartmoney reports. On Wednesday, the online retail giant announced that users can mail in used CDs in exchange for store credit. Amazon’s trade-in program has previously accepted a variety of media and electronics including books, movies and video games. The site collects eligible used titles from customers and resells them to third-party merchants.

If anything, Amazon’s new CD trade-in program underscores impressions of the compact disc format’s declining value. According to the site’s estimates, a used copy of Madonna’s new album, MDNA, will trade for up to $5 – a little more than enough to buy five tracks from the album on Amazon MP3 – while Skrillex’s Bangarang nets a measly 65 cents.

(Reprinted from Rolling Stone)

…and Now

12 Apr 2012 2 Comments

When you think rock ‘n’ roll, you think electric guitars. And when you think electric guitars, you think about Fenders and all of those Telecasters and Stratocasters played by legendary musicians, from Jimi Hendrix, George Harrison, and Keith Richards, to Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, and Stevie Ray Vaughan. The Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company first started operations in Fullerton, California in 1946, but didn’t start making Teles (originally called Broadcasters) until 1950, and Stratocasters until 1954. And they’re still making them today.

The first video above, “A Strat is Born,” takes you through the making of a contemporary Stratocaster in four timelapse minutes. The action all takes place at Fender’s factory in Corona, California. The second video below offers a vintage 1959 tour of the Fender factory in Fullerton, CA. Put the two videos side by side, and you can see how much times have … or haven’t … changed.

(Source: Open Culture)

Video by Ed Cyphers

Making Fender Guitars: Then…

12 Apr 2012 1 Comment

Fender Factory tour, 1959.

Video by Ed Cyphers

Songs You May Have Missed #76

12 Apr 2012 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in Songs You May Have Missed Tags: ,

erelli

Mark Erelli: “Basement Days” (2010)

Mark Erelli name-checks the 70’s and puts a lump in the throat of guys who once had rock god ambitions…and hair.

See also: https://edcyphers.com/2015/08/20/songs-you-may-have-missed-542/

Songs You May Have Missed #75

12 Apr 2012 2 Comments

by Ed Cyphers in Songs You May Have Missed Tags: ,

plates

Fountains of Wayne: “The Girl I Can’t Forget” (2005)

Great power pop story song from the genre’s cleverest lyricists. The intelligence and wit of Chris Collingwood and Adam Schlesinger is unmatched among bands making this type of music.

Pigeonholed by their 2003 hit “Stacy’s Mom”, the band made a lot of fake fans, many of whom flaked away as soon as they realized FOW’s other songs weren’t similarly written for single-celled organisms. “Stacy’s Mom Syndrome” should be the name for that phenomenon of a band having one massive hit that is totally unrepresentative of their catalog. (Sounds better than “Tubthumping Syndrome”, right?)

See also: https://edcyphers.com/2013/04/04/songs-you-may-have-missed-384/

See also: https://edcyphers.com/2013/07/07/songs-you-may-have-missed-443/

Songs You May Have Missed #74

12 Apr 2012 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in Songs You May Have Missed Tags: , ,

mindbenders

Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders: “Ashes to Ashes” (1966)

There were a lot of good British Invasion singles that were just shoved aside for other British Invasion singles I guess. I think this one deserved a better fate than its #55 placing on the U.S. chart.

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