Tag Archives: discogs

Cassette Project 1: Feeding the monster

That’s it! Enough! I’ve had it with tapes for a while. I added another batch of regular audio tapes into that database monster named Discogs. It needs to be fed. Needs more metadata. Yum-yum! Continue reading

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One decade at Discogs

I’ve been a member of discogs.com for a full decade. It has become as much a part of my daily online regimen as checking my email or Twitter feed. No other site has grabbed my attention in the way that Discogs has, nor has any other online resource infuriated me in the same manner. Discogs is as fascinating as it is frustrating. Continue reading

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The Archivist’s Dilemma

I am a collector because I collect a particular kind of cassette. I am an archivist because I disseminate and publish facts and data which future generations might find useful. The (meta)data ends up in a database called Discogs. Scans end up in my personal stash, and the cassettes end up in the trash. Nobody wants those, they’re just plastic matter. But what of the audio on those tapes, the gist of it all? Let corporate greed ensure that the majority of “European” recordings will survive for future generations to gush over. Continue reading

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Cassette Project #1: A Reprise

Two years ago I wrote about how my tape collection had, as part of the process of elimination and digitization, actually ballooned to more than tenfold its original size. Wheat and bran had been separated from the chaff — although no negligible amount of the former has been dropped off on my desk since then. I’ve begun entering that serendipitous stockpile of cassettes into the database. Continue reading

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Current status

Months of this insanity involving late hours trying to piece together the origins of an existing label or the forensics to determine the time and cause of demise of a label that’s disappeared off the radar can drive a person nuts. Conversely, it’s the controversial Google Book Search that’s turned out to be an invaluable tool for hunting down facts on companies that existed during the dark days of apartheid, BC. Continue reading

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Five years and good dope

Five years of deciphering cryptic codes and punctuation and matrix codes on CDs and tapes and records and figuring out and defining relationships between this label and that licensee, this company and that pressing plant, or this band and its members who don’t wish to be associated with the band anymore. Sometimes we get even met with thanks and tokens of appreciation. Continue reading

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Of tapes, laptops, and Freddie Mercury

I was given another 60 or so audio tapes. I was also given two laptops. Then there was discogs. On April 30th, the so-called Master Release function was finally unleashed. Continue reading

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The death of printed media

In a previous post I lamented the death of physical music carriers as our music purchasing and listening habits are progressively being overtaken by downloadable MP3 or similar formats. It’s therefore a logical progression to do the same about a music magazine that disappeared from the shelves in April 2002. With entire libraries of books available in digital format online or downloadable to your Kindle, it comes as quite a surprise that the internet hadn’t actually saved more forests sooner. Continue reading

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