Vinyl

Welcome to WFYI FM RADIO the home of the smooth soulful sounds where we’re spinning stacks of wax for you while you work or just go about your day. This is your beat bringing buddy DJ AA and you are in for a real treat for the next hour or so. Get ready to set the record straight and learn lots of exciting English in today’s session! Join me as we venture into the unbelievable world of vinyl on this week’s episode of FYI!

Transcript

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welcome to wfyi FM radio the home of the smooth Soulful sounds where we're spinning stacks of wax for you while you work or just go about your day this is your beat bringing buddy DJ daa and you're in for a real treat for the next day hour or so get ready to set the record straight and learn lots of exciting English in today's session join me as we venture into the unbelievable world of vinyl on this week's episode of FYI welcome to for your info engl you got it you got[Applause] it[Applause][Music] hello hello hello and welcome to another exciting edition of FYI your topic based show where you learn about everything and anything under the sun and today we're going to learn about one of my favorite topics ever you guessed it we're going to take take a look at records LPS vinyls call them whatever you will but they're back and they're bigger than ever as we'll see later on in today's show also a quick reminder guys if you haven't rated the show go on over to Apple podcast or wherever you listen to the show and give it a five-star rating and leave a comment every little bit helps and as you guys know this show is self-produced I don't have a big production team or a marketing team it is yours truly at the helm also if you have ideas for upcoming episodes drop me a line I'd love to hear your ideas for future episodes and I can't believe it folks we are nearing the end of the fifth season and this was a show that started in my daughter's bedroom during a very difficult time in everybody's life and the good thing is I think the show and you the FYI we have continued to grow and evolve together and that is Magic that is absolutely beautiful so thank you thank you thank you for learning laughing and growing with me year after year season after season episode after episode thank you FYI and if you guys want to get more content every week and I know many of you have told me I'm hungry for more I get it once you're into something you really get into it I'm exactly the same well you can get bonus content every single week including an extra episode like in today's extra episode we're going to look at all the idiomatic expressions related to records and the like we'll also take a look at a lot of fun facts as well plus you can also have PDF documents where you can follow along with all the vocabul and if you're in my super duper level will you get a weekly class with me where we go over the key elements of each episode plus we have a blast I really look forward to our weekly classes and if you're an Interstellar student well then you get all of that stuff plus a private class with me every month where we can gauge your progress so I'd like to send a shout out to all my patrons you guys are awesome keep up the great work a shout out to my super duper students Lena Javier Paco Roberto Jose Maria and Mila and don't forget about my Interstellar students Garmin Issa Baco David and Edgar if you want to join our curious Community then go over to patreon.com Alberto Alonso we're expecting you plus if it's not for you I have no problem refunding your money whatsoever so really you've got nothing to lose if you want a free sample reach out to me on social media and I'll send you a free sample of all the content you're missing out on more information at patreon.com Alberto Alonso now let's take a look at our intro which is usually chalk full of great vocabulary I started off by by saying welcome to wfyi radio for some reason I feel like all the radio stations in the United States start with W then I said this is the home of the smooth Soulful sounds where we're spinning stacks of wax so smooth is relaxing Soulful you know from the kind of music Soul and to spin is to play records it's what the DJ does I know you say in Spanish P but we don't say that if we wanted to Sayan we would say who's spinning tonight actually it's a false friend because if you say who's pinching tonight you're asking who's be so careful with those false friends they're everywhere so we're spinning stacks of wax well wax was another more antiquated way of calling records and stacks are piles so it Rhymes stacks of wax while you work or just go about your day and to go about your day is just doing your thing then I said this is your beat bringing buddy and the beat is the most important part of any song it reminds me of the idiomatic expression you never miss a beat not it means see we're already looking at some juicy idiomatic expressions then I said you're in for a real treat a real treat means a real surprise get ready to set the record straight and yet another idiomatic expression and to set the record straight is to correct a false account so somebody says Alberto you threw a rock at at that window and I say no no I didn't throw a rock at the window just ask that guy he's a witness he's a passer by and that guy will set the record straight you would say it reminds me of a really cool Beasty Boys song where they say it's time to set the record straight for any beasty boy fans in the house but it just goes to show you can learn tons of idiomatic expressions and structure from music I guess that's why I end up singing in every single episode also I like singing I'm not the greatest singer in the world nowhere near it but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy it and I guess you can apply that to your English you don't have to be the best English speaker in the world I don't even think that exists so our goal is not Perfection it's to look good doing it and have fun in the process and if we learn a little bit every day then we're on the right track hey there's another word that has to do with music a track is aista all right now I'm losing track all right I'll stop I'll stop with the corny jokes let's take a look at the etymology of the word vinyl the real name of vinyl is polyvinyl chloride or PVC it's very common to to see pipes made out of this and the name has something to do with wine what wine well think about it vinyl vinilo so let's see you guys are smart why did they name it after wine the reason is because it belongs to the vinyl or ethanol chemical group and that chemical formula is very close to that of ethylene which when mixed with water gives you ethanol or drinking alcohol so yes vinyl got its name from wine and wine is where it all started that was the first episode of FYI I'll never forget it and now we're going into the sixth season again thank you guys I am blown away and the guy who gave this substance its name vinyl was a German chemist name Herman Colby and this was in 1851 but initially record were not made of vinyl as we'll see many predecessors had to come before as with everything we look at but why did we end up with vinyl why do they still use vinyl to this day well first it's easily obtained and it's relatively cheap it's also strong and resistant to moisture and liquids now of course if you put it in battery acid it's going to corrode but it's relatively easy to de compos too which is another plus and another thing which is more of an aesthetic thing it's easy to produce transparent and different colors of vinyl although black is usually the preferred color all right here's another question for you why are most records black there are a couple reasons firstly colored ones or transparent ones are more sensitive than ordinary black ones because they have to use these special manufacturing techniques and then it causes it to wear out faster and to wear out is this Gast so if you're looking for the creme de La Creme you got to go with black plus something I hadn't thought of before what is a record's biggest enemy dust and it's a lot easier to see dust on a black record than on a colorful or transparent record but believe me I know and I'll tell you all about my record collection which is extremely special because it was handed down legado but I'll tell you all about that in the bonus episode and as we know on a record you'll also find grooves and grooves are the holes where they punch in those little little dents those Peaks and valleys if you will that ultimately tell the needle what music to make and as we know it's a very sensitive process if the record player isn't on a flat surface it's not going to sound good if there's a little bit of dust on the record it could skip so they're very sensitive but where did it all start as I said before they didn't even start as vinyl the early records were made of shellac but for many reasons and many that I said before they decided to go with vinyl in the end but the origins of vinyl records can be traced back to the late 1800s and that's when the idea of playing a flat disc was first introduced and of course that flat disc was playing recorded sound and who invented that Contraption did you say Thomas ala Edison cuz a lot of times people say the phonograph the predecessor to the record player yes but there was a guy who beat him to the punch and this was a guy a Frenchman named Edward Leon Scott de Martinville he invented something called the phone autograph and this was on March 25th 1857 around 20 years before Edison's phonograph so the idea of recording sound has been in the the minds of man since the beginning or at least the late 1800s the first vinyl record was introduced in 1948 and that was thanks to the invention by Emil Berliner a German born American inventor and in the late 19th century his invention revolutionized the way we listen to music and as I said earlier those discs were made of shellac shellac in Spanish is GMA laaka it's like a kind of varnish and initially they spun at 78 RPMs revolutions per minute and before that they recorded music on a cylinder so this was the first time that it was a flat dis shaped object and then it wasn't until around the mid-30s that vinyl records became the format of choice and that was their first boom and what's the deal with these RPMs these revolutions or rotations per minute well there's a kind of hoax going around on the internet that if you take 33 plus 45 it equals 78 but really there's no mathematical link the shellac records were spinning at 78 revolutions per minute because a German scientist the guy who we just talked about succeeded in reproducing a record at that speed so it wasn't that he decided 78 is the perfect speed he said well 78 is where I can hear something so 78 it is it's not like he had a preference for that number and then you got your 33 and A3 revolutions per minute and that was in the 1930s and then you got your 45 RPMs and back then that speed was more favorable for singles they weren't into full albums yet however classical music lovers they preferred the 33 and A3 RPMs because they could listen to entire Symphonies without having to constantly get up and change the records or flip them so what does all this mean what's better 45 or 33 and A3 or 33 as they just call it well 45 obviously travels faster and that means that more waveform definitions can exist on the record surface in other words there are more bumps and grooves created which translates into better audio quality so if you're looking for better audio quality you want 45 RPMs I'm sure I don't have to tell most of you that after this popularity of of Records dark days were ahead for vinyl for records in 1982 the CD was introduced and before that the cassette but the cassette and the record were working hand inand it wasn't until digital music came along that it really dethroned records and I'll never forget that the CDs oh man my first CD was Nirvana never mind and in the bonus part I'm going to tell you what my first record was as well but just to give you an idea the first CD was introduced in 1982 well CDs didn't surpass vinyl in sales numbers until 1986 so CDs didn't catch on or replace vinyl immediately it took around 4 years for CDs to start to dominate the market and at that time both CD sales and Al album sales were going up but as we know CDs won that war but not for long there's something that's happening now and we're living in it right now as we speak and it's called the vinyl Revival I like the sound of it and it's so big it's even got its own Wikipedia page and according to this Wikipedia page cuz you always have to trust Wikipedia in 2007 vinyl sales made a sudden small increase but this was enough to start the comeback LA remontada and by the early 2010s it was growing at a very quick rate the crazy thing is that a lot of vinyl factories were out of business or they fired or laid off a lot of their staff because there was no demand and now a lot of companies are having to reopen to make bigger factories to hire more people because there's a nonstop demand for vinyl now and it's growing every day the other day I bought a record it was one I really wanted and it cost me€40 okay I normally don't spend money on records but it was one I really wanted and I'll tell you what listening to records is like if you don't listen to them listening to records is about choosing your mood because when you listen to a playlist or a song you're always skipping around in fact a lot of times you don't even finish the song bonista no turn put this one on next so you can't even finish the song you're listening to but with a record as I said you don't want to get up 25 times so you decide what kind of mood you want to be in what kind of genre you want to listen to and you make a conscious decision of what world you want to enter and then you go and you pick it up you pick up this tangible thing and you hold it in your hand and you can smell it and you open it up and there are lyrics and there's artwork and now you're interacting with something and not a digital thing not a bunch of ones and zeros it's a very visceral experience and it's very on purpose you choose what you want to listen to it's not random and also the way you treat the albums I handle them with care I dust them off when I take them out I have them in these protective cases so I get why there's a comeback it's because people want to go back to the whole experience of listening to music but really listening to music not just skipping around or doing other things but really letting the music consume you I remember when I was a kid what are your hobbies listening to music with my friends and that's a hobby that seems like it's gone away but I believe records could bring that back and all you have to do is just look at the numbers in many many places now vinyl is out selling any other kind of music obviously cassettes but CDs too which still sell by the way there are people who collect CDs but the clear winner now is records they're breaking records okay I said I was going to stop with the corny jokes but I can't help it so as I said they're back and bigger than ever they call it the vinyl Revival and in the year 2020 that was the year where vinyl outsold CDs in the year 2022 Taylor Swift's album midnights became the first major album release to have its vinyl sales out sell CD sales since 1987 and that's for one individual artist by January 2023 it had moved over a million vinyl LPS in the us alone the only 21st century album to do so and if you look at the charts the numbers are just going up year after year I'm not telling you to jump on the bandwagon but if you're a real music lover then you will love the experience of listening to records and now you're seeing more and more record shops popping up all over the place big box stores are selling records as well I like to get them at the little mom and pop shops but sometimes when I want a specific one I go to a place like cor and I I can get many records so they are alive and kicking there's even an annual worldwide Record Store Day where you can stop by your local record shop and there's no denying the the nostalgic element as well so let's end this debate once and for all what's better then vinyl or digital well they say that records have a warm sound and it's true they have a very warm sound also the sound of that needle too that really gives it a certain mystique and I know what you're thinking you're thinking yeah vinyl's better the audio quality is better not necessarily everything in context guys if you're playing vinyl on some really crappy speakers with a bad amplifier it's not going to sound good the same way if you play a song on your mp3 player from your phone speaker I don't care what quality that song is it's not going to sound the same so really it's about the individual ual if you listen to CDs on an amazing sound system with Crystal Clear speakers sure the CD is going to catch some of those tones that those records can't catch but how many people listen to their digital music the way it should be listened to so I guess that's another thing it forces you to really get into the hobby the love of listening to music and I'm going to tell you more about my collection we're going to look at fun facts we'll look at the most expensive record ever sold and so much more so I sure hope you'll join us in the bonus episode of this week's[Applause][Music] FYI