Good Evening, in January this year Judy Collins re recorded her very first album at the town hall in New York, it was titled Judy Collins Live at the Town Hall NYC. It was scheduled for release in the UK in late August and I walked into my local HMV shop, spotted the manager and asked why it was not on their web site. He looked mystified and went onto their web site and then the internet and told me the album was only for release via iTunes or Spotify in the UK. I felt a bit of a you no what but it never occurred to me that the album would be released in such a restrictive way. I have tried to fathom how an artist of Judy Collins standing would agree to this and the only answer I come up with is money! Is this practice now common or the future with the advent of so called hi end streaming / streamers, certainly it would be attractive I think to profit focused organisations not to have to record onto cd or vinyl. In a conversation with my nephew earlier this year when I asked of his hi fi system he casually remarked that he was now viewing his source - a cd player - as outmoded technology. I never gave it much thought until now but also about 3 years ago I was bemoaning the lack of quality vinyl recordings to a dealer and he recommended to me Vinyl Gourmet as a source. If anyone cares to look on their web site you will see a very professional layout and obviously they are passionate about vinyl but the availability is very low and I have now give up looking for recordings I wanted. This experience is surely going to steer the younger generation to streaming. |