Back in 1980 or so, in Los Angeles, I had a disastrous try-out to be one of the original MTV VJs. I had no idea what the content was going to be, but having been on the radio and having done stand-up, I figured why not try out? By the time I wrote the article below, which appeared in Los Angeles music magazine "Music Connection" the week of April 12th-25th 1984 (25 years ago!), MTV had gone from pretty bad to much worse. So I wrote this arbor of sour grapes that I thought you might find amusing now that MTV is no longer about music.-Ed.
Outsiders examining this ten disc (Blu-ray or DVD), 128 track, sumptuously packaged, excruciatingly detailed, image-laden, minutia packed, monolith of a box set, whose complex menu navigation system more closely resembles a video game than a movie, can be forgiven for mistaking Neil Young for a raving egomaniac.
By Armegeddon (however the Evangelical wet-dream is spelled) this article will be TOTALLY updated!
157 In-Print LPs You Should Own! Soon to be Updated.....Yea, sure. That's what you've been saying for more than a year....(sorry but soon, really!)
Okay, that's a ridiculous headline. It's the kind of cynical ploy you see on magazine covers to attract attention. These are really 157 LPs I do own, some of which you probably will enjoy and should own, and some of which you will probably hate. No doubt you already own some.
This tiny, lightweight, battery-powered jewel is loosely based on Nagra's VPS phono stage that I reviewed in October 2008 but uses bipolar transistors instead of tubes. The bottom of the company's familiar brushed-aluminum case has a grippy rubber material die-cut to spell Nagra. It's intended to keep the preamp from sliding, but stiff cables will have the BPS hanging in the air if you're not careful. The BPS costs $2399.
In an ideal world, I'd have every phono section I've reviewed in the past 16 years on hand to compare with these three and with all that arrive in the future. But because I have a life, I don't, and I wouldn't even if I could, though some readers (and one retailer) have insisted that that's the only way that I could possibly be of any use to them. Ha! And for those who are concerned that I've neglected the Manley Steelhead, not so! It's still my reference.
Caught in 1972 between The Beatles and Byrds pop/folk undertow and too early to catch the indie rock wave pioneered by bands like REM later in the decade, commercial failure was all but assured for Big Star, aided by what many at the time considered was a bad Memphis, TN based record company roll out with spotty distribution and less than stellar promotion.