28 April 2010

The musical intstrument everyone knows how to play


I found this gem in the dust jacket of an old Pete Seeger ("We Shall Overcome") album from the 60's I got today:

HERE'S HOW RECORDS GIVE YOU MORE OF WHAT YOU WANT:

1. THEY'RE YOUR BEST ENTERTAINMENT BUY. Records give you top quality for less money than any other recorded form. Every album is a show in itself. And once you've paid the price of admission, you can hear it over and over.

2. THEY ALLOW SELECTIVITY OF SONGS AND TRACKS. With records it's easy to pick out the songs you want to play, or to play again a particular song or side. All you have to do is life the tone arm and place it where you want it. You can't do this as easily with anything but a phonograph record.

3. THEY'RE CONVENIENT AND EASY TO HANDLE. With the long-playing record you get what you want to hear, when you want to hear it. Everybody's familiar with records, too. And you can go anywhere with them because they're light and don't take up space.

4. THEY'RE ATTRACTIVE, INFORMATIVE AND EASY TO STORE. Record albums are never out of place. Because of the aesthetic appeal of the jacket design, they're beautifully at home in any living room or library. They've also got important information on the backs -- about the artists, about the performances or about the program. And because they're flat and not bulky, you can store hundreds in a minimum of space and still see every title.

5. THEY'LL GIVE YOU HOURS OF CONTINUOUS AND UNINTERRUPTED ENJOYMENT. Just stack them up on your automatic changer and relax.


6. THEY'RE THE PROVEN MEDIUM. Long-playing phonograph records look the same now as when they were introduced in 1948, but there's a world of difference. Countless refinements and developments have been made to perfect the long-playing record's technical excellence and insure the best in sound reproduction and quality.


7. IF IT'S IN RECORDED FORM, YOU KNOW IT'LL BE AVAILABLE ON RECORDS. Everything's on long-playing records these days...your favorite artists, shows, comedy, movie sound tracks, concerts, drama, documented history, educational material...you name it. This is not so with any other kind of recording.


8. THEY MAKE A GREAT GIFT because everybody you know likes music. And everyone owns a phonograph because it's the musical instrument everyone knows how to play. Records are a gift that says a lot to the person you're giving them to. And they keep on remembering.


AND REMEMBER...IT ALWAYS HAPPENS FIRST ON RECORDS.






[Well put, Don Draper.]

2 comments:

Gina Marie said...

I didn't read your intro because I got sucked in by the bold letters. I thought you were being sarcastic, then got confused, then KNEW you were being sarcastic, then finally read the first line and did a "ooohhhh". It's been a long day.

This is great, though.

J D said...

To be fair:
1. I am almost always sarcastic, so that's not a bad default assumption to make on your part.
2. If I were to actually write a post in the spirit of 1960's marketing about the joys of vinyl, it would most likely be a carbon copy of this post.