European Gigilo

Gotta tip your hat to Adam Sandler and company for pointing out some of the hypocracies of modern day life in the good old US of A. Truckloads of reefer seem to be legal in Denmark, smoking in coffee houses, prostitution, and we in the right wing republic of US are outlawing cigarette smoking in public places. Our civil rights have been and are slowly dwindling to a stand still. You have to make big money to live comfortably here, and this didn't use to be the case. Gasoline prices, real estate prices, grocery prices. Fook man. That reminds me, actually brings me to a good point about our music business. When I got my first turntable in high school back in the late 70's, I could barely afford the price of an album. I remember they were always $7.00. That was almost my whole allowance for one week. If you bought an album, that meant no date/movie that weekend. (What would you choose, sex or music?) Then when CD's replaced albums and cassette tapes, they emerged at over $15.00 a pop for a $00.15 worth of plastic coated with some flimsy metallic material. They didn't even sound good to begin with, because the whole analog process of recording that sweetens sound wasn't fully understood. The whole FM/Digital age came along and the concept of sound went from sweet and pleasant to harsh and crass, or crisp as it may have been. My beef is music has always been grossly overpriced. No wonder the record industry is ailing. When you offer a consumer product at a reasonable, affordable cost, people buy it. MP3's must look like the Holy Grail to blooming Gen Xer's, people that can't afford to buy their music at the record store. The downside of course is, most people overlook that MP3's don't sound that good. Minidisc sounds good, but don't let me disparage the whole burgeoning iPod industry. I am glad Apple is making money, but I myself don't want no stinking iPod. I am an audiophile, a purist, and I let my AIFF files take up all that hard drive space on my ibook. Why not? The space is there, and I can burn quality CD's with the touch of a button. I did import a sizeable amount of CD's into iTunes, but for some reason it just doesn't push my button. Ferric Oxide (rust) has an amazing ability to record and sweeten sound, and that is a good thing. I recently mastered some 24 year old cassette tapes, and they sounded just as good as the day I recorded them. (You can't say that for DAT) Anyway, I would be the last one to post my original music on a website for free. You have to pay for a quality product. In fact, I wish they would have paid a little more for foley effects and incidental music in the European Gigilo. It was an entertaining film, but with that one dimensional sound track, i.e. no crowd noise, ambient city noise, or the like, it feels really oppressive. I doubt Amsterdam would be that quiet. Peace Out