WXRT DJ Terri Hemmert recently played Aztec Camera's cover of Van
Halen's "Jump," noting that she was playing it from vinyl, the b side
of a single, because the track wasn't available on CD. Which had me
pondering, is "b side" becoming an antiquated term, unfamiliar to the
youngest generation of music listeners (a.k.a. Kids These Days)? CD
singles, which were never very popular, usually have additional
tracks, but there is no flip single to them like a 7-inch has, which
makes "b side" arbitrary nomenclature to begin with. With the growing
acceptance of buying single tracks as downloads, there aren't even
additional songs attached to better known recordings.
A high school student responded "What's that?" when I said, "LPs" to
her. She knew what records were, but the concept of a long
playing record was meaningless to her even though I think of it
synonymously with "album." I didn't think to quiz her on 8-tracks.
No comments:
Post a Comment