Thursday, September 11, 2008

I hate 5" records


The 45 or 7" or whatever you want to call it is the perfect musical delivery system. Whether it is classic soul or 14 songs of the rawest hardcore, the format keeps it short and sweet. No time for any double LP foolishness. Shorter isn't always better though. Case in point, the 5". Where novelty and collectiblity collide and no one is the winner. Big Black did one with the pigpile VHS. I remember it was almost impossible to play since most turntables with the automatic arm return pick up before the track starts. Great.
RFTC did one which figured prominently in a previous post and not in a good way. I am sure I have a few others (slap a ham maybe?)and I know I have some 60s/70s novelty jingles on 5"s. Do I play them? No. I can't even seem to remember them.
The format sucks. It is too short. Sound quality seems shoddy and you can't really file them with your other singles.
Record collectors are pretentious assholes said someone smarter than me and this format proves the point. Get less for more.
Never mind the fact that the existence of the stupid RFTC one woke me up out of a deep sleep and ruined an uber-nerd theory I was developing. So ruining my day alone, 5"s are on my shit list but there is more.
A format that sucks almost as bad as flexis(flexis will always be cooler) and is almost as a big a pain as 78s, but holds less music and is harder to play.
What is the upside?

1 comment:

Ur Trommler said...

NO upside! back in the day (hereby formally noted as BITD...), i got a 5" by squeeze "pulling mussels..." - it would not even play on my turntable - the auto feature thought the thing was over by where the tonearm was on the record!! you'd hear the first 30 seconds - boom, tonearm up and back... c'mon now...