Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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RIAA Certificate On Instrument Showing What Famous Recordings It Was Featured On

"It's a 68 Sunburst, but hold on..." (flips it over to show the certificate on the back) "It's the guitar Jimmy Page played on Stairway To Heaven!"
  (+6, -1)
(+6, -1)
  [vote for,
against]

The music biz is big on verification plaques. You don't get a gold record with your name on it until the RIAA does an audit verifying unit sales, minimum price etc.

So using a smaller version of the same kind of little plaques they have on gold and platinum album awards, have auditors verify that a particular instrument was used on a particular recording and affix the certification to the instrument. The back of a guitar for instance.

The certification process would be rigorous, basically the person who played the part would have to certify it. Perhaps a producer or sound engineer but ideally the person who actually played it.

The plaque could even feature the signature of the artist certifying this was the instrument they used.

Not just to enhance the worth of the instrument, although there'd be that, but to document a bit of music history.

doctorremulac3, Mar 07 2020

"Damn I'm getting sick of this crappy weather already." https://www.youtube...watch?v=u1V8YRJnr4Q
"Hmm. Let's try a more interesting take on that concept. " [doctorremulac3, Mar 07 2020]

for the good doctor 3 ... https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/vah
[pertinax, Mar 10 2020]

Yes, someday we'll all be dust, but in the meantime some people enjoy pieces of rock history. https://cartervinta...r-stratocaster-2041
[doctorremulac3, Mar 11 2020]

The millennial whoop https://www.youtube...watch?v=mqiK8b8nHaM
The equivalent of putting sugar into crappy food products to sell more of it. [doctorremulac3, Mar 14 2020]

"I'm not an old fuddy duddy! I'm still cool!" https://www.youtube...watch?v=QWWIpECf3Sg
South Park perfectly addressed the phenomena of gullible old people trying to look hip by pretending to like formulaic corporate shit music. [doctorremulac3, Mar 14 2020, last modified Mar 15 2020]

[link]






       Can any group other than the RIAA verify it? I like this idea, just not the "RIAA" part.
sninctown, Mar 07 2020
  

       I get what you're saying about the RIAA because it's an American company but the American gold or platinum record award is the one people typically display. Ask the Beatles about how excited they were getting their first 10,000 units sold in Austria resulting in a gold record award certified by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. I mean, Austria, great country, great people but would you bother displaying a gold record from there? I wouldn't. If you were to put gold records on your wall from every country around the world you sold records in you'd look kind of silly. America has always been the big market goal so those are the awards people typically display.   

       I suppose you could have another organization like Sothebys but they're not a musical organization.   

       Naa, the biggest is the RIAA, it's the award everybody, from whatever country goes for and it's the hardest to get so I'd give the gig to them.   

       By the way, I can attest to the almost religious experience of handling historical pieces of music history. I was invited to check out the vault at the Fantasy Records building and holding what felt like a religious relic in my trembling hands, reading the notes on a humble looking 1" multitrack tape I got a rare insight into a musical icon's creativity.   

       The master tape was labeled "Creedence Clearwater Revival" and the part that gave me a chill up my spine was the working titles of the various takes on the song they were working on as it progressed from a rough idea to a classic rock musical masterpiece. I don't remember the titles exactly, but I remember how they progressed from rough idea to finished product:   

       "Wow, the Weather's Crappy"   

       "Can We Get Some Friggin' Sun For A Change?"   

       "Getting Sick Of Driving To The Studio In The Rain"   

       "Have You Ever Seen Such Horrible Weather?"   

       "Have You Ever Seen Rain Like This?"   

       "Have You Ever Seen The Rain"   

       I realized seeing this that amazing music is made by human beings, not gods who were struck by lightening bolts of creativity from some parallel universe. John Fogerty just took a thought we've all had, "God this weather sucks" and made it into something incredibly beautiful.   

       (See link if you're not familiar with the song.)
doctorremulac3, Mar 07 2020
  

       I think if I found out I was playing a Jimi Hendrix guitar, I'd faint and fall.
blissmiss, Mar 07 2020
  

       Me too. Would I even dare to play it? I would have to, but inside I'd be saying "Forgive me Jimi for this, my impious clumsy noodling, but I must jam on thine guitar for I have no choice. It is that inner demon inside me that whispers to my soul when facing majesty such as yours: "Hell, that doesn't look so hard, I could probably do better than that.""
doctorremulac3, Mar 07 2020
  

       "and the wind cries Mary..."
blissmiss, Mar 07 2020
  

       And by the way, I'm quite sure John attached a matching story to this after the initial outline knowing people aren't going to get much of an emotional connection with somebody bitching about the weather. Sometimes a song is born of a chord progression you like, sometimes the story is first, sometimes the story is written to match what the song sounds like after you've heard it for the first time and still other times the story is added with a punched up plot to the outline you came up with just because you're in the recording studio and time is money. "Gotta sing something, we'll worry about the words later.". Or you can just be like Led Zeppelin and not give a damn about the lyrics meaning anything, just make 'em sound good. Now I might be wrong, Led Zeppelin's lyrics might mean something but if somebody offered to explain them to me I'd probably just turn up the music to drown them out. Sometimes art doesn't need to mean anything, it just needs to sound, look or feel good.
doctorremulac3, Mar 07 2020
  

       //deign to play it// I am sure most artists be saddened if they thought they had stopped an instrument being played. Even if played in a learny way.
wjt, Mar 07 2020
  

       I think used the word deign wrong. What's the opposite of that, dare?   

       Not fancy enough. (looks past the camera) LINE!
doctorremulac3, Mar 07 2020
  

       A lot of this stuff ends up in the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame. Just do more of that.
tatterdemalion, Mar 07 2020
  

       Hard Rock Cafe also did the rock museum / restaurant thing. Very brilliant.   

       But if it's in a museum people can't buy it, play it, invest in it etc. Ok to put some in a museum, but it would be cool to have some be collectible and available if you had enough money. But are you going to pay $500,000 for a guitar without it being verified as having been played on some famous classic song? I had mentioned Sotheby's, they've probably already done something similar but without the plaque.   

       Vintage guitars are already quite collectible, this would enhance that. The plaque would have to be affixed in such a way to not hurt the finish though.
doctorremulac3, Mar 07 2020
  

       You could use neutron beam activation to impress a unique pattern of mild radioactivity into the structure. It doesn't cause any harm and the emissions aren't dangerous. It's nearly impossible to fake, and the pattern can be "read" reatively easily simply by clamping some unexposed photographic film* over the site and then developing it later.   

       *For younger readers, you can ask your grandparents about what film was.
8th of 7, Mar 07 2020
  

       //LINE//   

       You could try "presume". There are fancier constructions with more words, but they might not add much value in this case.
pertinax, Mar 08 2020
  

       Yea, that's pretty fancy, but I want a word that makes people think I'm really like, you know, totally smart 'n stuff. One where people have to look up the word online.   

       It has to make people say "Wow! How does he do all such good word talk without doing a dictionary about it, and then sentencing maker too?"
doctorremulac3, Mar 08 2020
  

       // One where people have to look up the word online. //   

       What sort of people ? Clever, normal (stupid), or very stupid ?   

       Without a specification, it's a big ask.
8th of 7, Mar 08 2020
  

       (PrtX) re link, I once did an impression of a well spoken gentleman with a mouth full of crackers spitting out crumbs as I spoke. Got great laughs. Next time I do a public speaking engagement I'd like to do that again. While making all sorts of deep, heavy points just casually grab a couple of crackers and then just start talking again, spraying crumbs everywhere. Not just crumbs falling out of the mouth, that would be gross, projecting them by using a lot of Ps and Ts.   

       Could be a thing like Gallager with his watermelons.   

       Anyway, try it sometime. I was on a fishing boat when I did it, you have to pick the right time and place. I wouldn't do it as the best man at a wedding, or speaking at a funeral.
doctorremulac3, Mar 10 2020
  

       //emissions aren't dangerous. It's nearly impossible to fake,//   

       Right, we'll see about that. (downloads multiple plans for Farnsworth fusors and extracts the "key of destiny" a key passed down from postdoc who's nice to the guys in the loading dock to postdoc who's nice to the guys in the loading dock. A key to a room where old things cursed with the mark of the asset number go to spend eternity. I've seen things you wouldn't believe....)
bs0u0155, Mar 10 2020
  

       // I've seen things you wouldn't believe... //   

       Yes, but all those ... moments ... will be lost, in time, like ... tears ... in rain.
8th of 7, Mar 10 2020
  

       This is a lot of effort just to give boomers a chance to feel like the music of their youth is in some way culturally significant. My contention is that in 50 years - once the boomer generation is all good and dead - the proportion of people giving a fifth of a fuck about Led Zeppelin and who played what instrument on what song will be at or very close to zero. 8th appears to be pre-emptively agreeing with me. This comment will apply mutatis mutandis for all other generations obsessed with their own pop cultural artifacts. What purpose does this serve? Who gives a shit? Except the TR-808. That is eternal.
calum, Mar 11 2020
  

       //This is a lot of effort just to give boomers a chance to feel like the music of their youth is in some way culturally significant. My contention is that in 50 years - once the boomer generation is all good and dead - the proportion of people giving a fifth of a fuck about Led Zeppelin and who played what instrument on what song will be at or very close to zero.//   

       Damn calum, save some dark bitterness for the rest of us.   

       Obviously you don't have children. (Which might be a good thing.) It's already been 50 years or more for much of this music and more people are listening to it now than they did then.   

       With downloadable music, people have the choice of what they listen to and they're going for quality, not garbage. "Boomer" music is huge and continually creating new audiences with subsequent generations by virtue of its quality, nothing else.   

       There was a golden era of music, from the 50s to the 80s. Yes, it was the baby boomers who made this music but what made this period different was because such a large portion of the population was young, the values of the population created a market geared towards young consumers so the best and the brightest put their genius into creating music. A modern Paul McCartney or Jimmy Page would be creating a high tech startup company with their genius today, not starting a rock band.   

       That's why this music was great, young people with creative talents were drawn to this industry.   

       And this isn't some old timer with a wall full of old gold and platinum records saying "These young whippersnappers just don't make music like they used to!" Music before the 50s was garbage too. If you were a genius in 1930 you didn't start a band, you invented some new process or started a company. Modern music bears a striking resemblance to the crap people listened to in the 1920s. Absolute formulaic garbage.   

       As far as the idea, I guess Picasso's might be worthless someday as well, but as for people investing in pieces of rock history, see the link to a guitar used on the song "Sweet Home Alabama". It's going for almost half a million dollars.   

       Sometimes it's OK to invest in something that makes people happy.   

       Some people that is.
doctorremulac3, Mar 11 2020
  

       // "Sweet Home Alabama" //   

       We know that movie ! It's the one with the yellow DeHavilland Beaver DHC-2 floatplane.   

       Can't recall anything else about it tho. A lot of rubbish about some stupid girl, and far too little about the aircraft. So dull.
8th of 7, Mar 11 2020
  

       //Music before the 50s was garbage too// Have you told Bach? I think he should know.
pocmloc, Mar 11 2020
  

       What about Gödel and Escher ?
8th of 7, Mar 11 2020
  

       //Music before the 50s was garbage too// Have you told Bach? I think he should know.//   

       We're talking about modern music. Last hundred years or so.
doctorremulac3, Mar 11 2020
  

       So that's Fauré, Butterworth, Dvořák, Elgar, Prokofiev, Bartók, Williams, Respighi, Vangelis, Khachaturian, Casals, Barber, Mahler, Debussy ... all consigned to the "49¢ remainder bin" of musical history by [doc]'s ineffable discrimination...   

       Do you mind letting us know your Truspilot and Tripadvisor userids ? Jus so's we can spot the dodgy reviews ...
8th of 7, Mar 11 2020
  

       Do you listen to music?   

       Thought not.   

       How about this, did you ever start a music company that generated a tenth of a billion dollars in record sales worldwide?   

       Asking for a friend.
doctorremulac3, Mar 11 2020
  

       // Do you listen to music? //   

       Some music ; opinions vary as to what constitutes "music" ...   

       <Placeholder for extensive condescending elitist putdown/>   

       // Thought not. //   

       Ah, you have thought ! Congratulations ! Now, you just need to keep the process going. It's like riding a bike- just a lot harder to stick baseball cards in the spokes...   

       // How about this, did you ever start a music company that generated a tenth of a billion dollars in record sales worldwide? //   

       "It's clever, but is it Art ?"   

       // Asking for a friend. //   

       Another first for you ! Double congratulations !   

       Do they know they're your friend yet ?
8th of 7, Mar 11 2020
  

       Yup, those are words, good job.
doctorremulac3, Mar 11 2020
  

       No need to thank us yet; after all, you haven't had the benefit of the extensive condescending elitist putdown ...   

       Would you like a free side order of smug intellectual denigration with that ? For just 98¢ - the price of two hour-long orchestral masterpieces - you can upgrade to our Premium Insult Service, where you get accused of being "a ghastly little troglodytic prole" and "having the aesthetic sensitivity of a geriatric cave snake*"   

       *cave snakes do not have functional eyes, and are deaf, although they can detect some forms of vibration.
8th of 7, Mar 11 2020
  

       WORD FIGHT!   

       Hey Max, get in here, you're missing the fun!
doctorremulac3, Mar 11 2020
  

       // Not sure why they ever let you out of room 12, really //   

       We'd chewed all the padding off the walls.   

       Again.   

       <Goes to listen at closed door of Room 13/>
8th of 7, Mar 11 2020
  

       //did you ever start a music company that generated a tenth of a billion dollars in record sales worldwide? Asking for a friend. //   

       //Do they know they're your friend yet ?//   

       I think you missed my message there.   

       But as King Arthur said in The Holy Grail: We'll call it a draw.
doctorremulac3, Mar 11 2020
  

       Actually, it was the Black Knight ...   

       Like you, he didn't have a leg to stand on either ...   

       // Montgomery isn't in there. //   

       <Sobbing/>
8th of 7, Mar 11 2020
  

       //Damn calum, save some dark bitterness for the rest of us.//
I am not bitter, just aware of the passage of time. I had hoped that the obvious hypocrisy of my comment re the 808 would have made my tone clear. Alas.
  

       // Obviously you don't have children.//
Wrong.
  

       //(Which might be a good thing.)//
Rude.
  

       //It's already been 50 years or more for much of this music and more people are listening to it now than they did then.//
If we accept this unsupported assumption, the question becomes "are they enjoying it?" and the answer, I would posit, is fuck no.
  

       //With downloadable music, people have the choice of what they listen to and they're going for quality, not garbage.//
Cursory googling reveals that "Shape of You" by Ed Sheeran is the most streamed song on Spotify, with over 2 billion streams.
  

       // "Boomer" music is huge and continually creating new audiences with subsequent generations by virtue of its quality, nothing else.//
Or maybe its popularity is increasing by virtue of Grandpa getting an ipad and Apple Music.
  

       //There was a golden era of music, from the 50s to the 80s. Yes, it was the baby boomers who made this music but what made this period different was because such a large portion of the population was young, the values of the population created a market geared towards young consumers so the best and the brightest put their genius into creating music. A modern Paul McCartney or Jimmy Page would be creating a high tech startup company with their genius today, not starting a rock band.//
Is this automatic writing?
  

       //That's why this music was great, young people with creative talents were drawn to this industry.//
The music is great (to you) because you like it. All else here is a post hoc rationalisation.
  

       //And this isn't some old timer with a wall full of old gold and platinum records saying "These young whippersnappers just don't make music like they used to!" Music before the 50s was garbage too. //
Philosophers will in years to come use this sentence as an example of the pure paradox of being both subjective opinion and objectively wrong at the same time.
  

       //If you were a genius in 1930 you didn't start a band, you invented some new process or started a company. Modern music bears a striking resemblance to the crap people listened to in the 1920s. Absolute formulaic garbage.//
I am beginning to suspect that you yourself might be a boomer.
  

       //As far as the idea, I guess Picasso's might be worthless someday as well, but as for people investing in pieces of rock history, see the link to a guitar used on the song "Sweet Home Alabama". It's going for almost half a million dollars.//
I have only heard that song in the context of the movie Con Air. Con Air is at least twice the artistic statement that Sweet Home Alabama is.
  

       //Sometimes it's OK to invest in something that makes people happy.//
This is as close as you came in your comment to saying something correct so, great, good, yeah.
calum, Mar 11 2020
  

       OK boomer.
doctorremulac3, Mar 11 2020
  

       So let me get this straight. The music produced (by certain commercial producers) from the 1950s to the 80s is demonstrably better than the music from the 1920s to the 1950s, and better than the music that was produced from the 1980s to the present day, because the people who like the kind of music that was produced from the 1950s to the 1980s have better taste than the (significantly larger number of) people who like listening to Ed Sheeran. And music before the 1920s is quite possibly miles better than any of that stuff which is why we're not allowed to use it as a comparison. And in 50 years time these facts will still be true.   

       Is that a fair summary of the state of knowledge so far?
pocmloc, Mar 11 2020
  

       I feel like "knowledge" is stretching it a bit.
calum, Mar 11 2020
  

       OK, is that a fair summary of the state of arbitrary opinion so far?
pocmloc, Mar 11 2020
  

       That accords with my reading of the good doctor's position, once you've done the necessary winnowing.
calum, Mar 11 2020
  

       It's generally considered a valid hypothesis if no more than 50% of the data points have to be excluded to get the graph to fit the theory.
8th of 7, Mar 11 2020
  

       Can you do repeat iterations of the 50% removal?
pocmloc, Mar 11 2020
  

       If you're subtle about it, yes.   

       Note that the specification was "no more than 50%". To convince the reviewers, you have to qualify your justification for the "tweak".   

       For example:
"12.3% - excluded on the basis of being outside the predicted normal distribution"
"18.1% - unsatisfactory signal quality, or lacked repeatability"
"4.31% - experimental error"
"8.12% - signal-to-noise ratio below threshold*"
  

       ... etc. etc. Total 42.83% ...   

       For specific expertise on massaging the numbers to fit the desired result, what you really need is a biologist. Try [bs] or [MB} ...   

       *choose a nice large value.
8th of 7, Mar 11 2020
  

       OK, Calum, I think enough time has passed since Max's sad passing for me to address this. I wanted to have this forum retain a nice respectful tone for a bit in his honor, but now I'll respond in kind to the nasty post you put up.   

       First off, I'm assuming your name is shortened version of calumny, which would be pretty appropriate. You didn't say anything clever, insightful or even interesting, just nasty and boorish so I'm not going to bother responding to stuff like: "Is this automatic writing?" Plus you put in about 30 lines that almost put me to sleep trying to get through them so I'll just give a brief synopsis.   

       As for your "argument", some people do a little trick of picking one part of a statement such as "Airbags save lives" and try to show how clever they are by refuting it, pointing out for instance that accidental airbag deployments kill a certain amount of people per year as proof that airbags DON'T save lives. They parade around with "airbag death statistics", throw in the occasional uselessly flowery lines like "post hoc rationalisation" or "the pure paradox of being both subjective opinion and objectively wrong at the same time" and proudly do a victory march back into their mother's basement. You chose to make up your own version of this by saying music from a certain period isn't more successful (after 50 years) than new music because a contemporary artist may currently be selling more music than music from a period 50 years ago. A great way to win arguments is to do both sides like you did, pretend the other guy made an assertion he never made, then rebut it. You're going to "win" every time. I could say "When Ed Sheeran's 50 year old catalog ages as well as the Beatles, then we can compare." but even that would be addressing a statement I never made. Compare the modern decade's catalog in 50 years to the 1960s or 1970s catalog at 100 years. Some music survives, some dies and there's a reason for that. The Blue Danube is a quality piece and it's survived very well, but I guess I'd have to be 160 years old to like that one. I'm sure it's just the same as anything by Antonio Salieri. (who?) And Ironic you cited Ed Sheeran. I'm quite sure he'd agree with me on this one. He stars in a movie that's a tribute to the genius of the Beatles, but you probably didn't see that because you're not a music fan, just an expert on music.   

       So I guess you're saying that music is purely subjective, there is no quality, no good, no bad, all music is the same, it's just a matter of the person listening to it. Hmm, maybe you do have a future in the music biz after all.   

       So tell you what, if you ever sell ten records, write the music, perform, produce or in any way have something to do with its creation I'll be happy to hear your views. Not ten thousand, not one hundred thousand, not a million, not ten million. Ten. One-zero.   

       Do that and I will be genuinely interested in what you have to say about the music business and the art- form in general. I really will.   

       And as far as insulting art, like disparaging the particular song you referred to, here's something I do know. The person who can see beauty in something is the person who's winning at the art critic game, not the bully who walks up to somebody sniffing a flower who swats it out of their hand and says "That flower's stupid and you're stupid for thinking it's pretty!"   

       OK, what's next... pocmloc, I can address your question a bit more succinctly. Music is a product. There are good quality and bad quality products. There are also factors that contribute to the quality of products, be it music, or cars or milkshakes. One can argue what those factors are or to what extent those various factors affect the product, but to deny the concept of quality is probably not something you want to do if you want to create... whatever it is.   

       Which opens up the whole concept of purposefully lowering the quality of a product to make more money, something that does happen and is an interesting subject but eh, maybe some other time.   

       By the way, see link for an exploration of how the music industry's dumbed-down music to make more money without depending on talent, which can be expensive and rare. For one thing, much of it features one repeating note sequence that helps sell the product. This is done on purpose, the equivalent of putting sugar into crappy food products to sell more of it. South Park also addresses the concept of stupid old people trying to act hip by pretending to like this modern dumbed down shitty music in a particularly brilliant episode. (link)   

       I'll wrap up by saying I can judge a song as good quality or bad quality without liking it. I have a particular taste, I like heavy metal music, but a song like Bridge Over Troubled Water or Dancing Queen by ABBA is brilliant. My cup of tea? No, but I know quality from shit. Incidentally, I have "Shape of You" on my phone. Amazing song.   

       LOL, I've gotta say, it's brawls like this where old Max would step in with a clever quip, insightful one liner or just a calm and thoughtful tone that would turn one of these street fights back into a gentleman's debate. Ahh Max. Sure miss ya.
doctorremulac3, Mar 14 2020
  

       Perhaps this exchange between [calum] and [doc3] about boomer music would make more sense in the light of metonymy. That is, people would not get so heated if that music had been just music, but it wasn't; the boomers were the first people to make musical genres fundamental to personal and political identity. That's why, for example, some people got angry when Bob Dylan turned out not to be a messiah.   

       Remember that old slogan written on a guitar - "This machine kills fascists"? There are some clues there as to why this debate is still angry.
pertinax, Mar 14 2020
  

       I don't think calum likes music, just arguing for the sake of it. Which is fine. I'm down for the occasional brawl.   

       Hey calum, prove me wrong. Tell me a song you like and why. What's good about it? Is it moving? Is it energetic? Drum beat? Bassline? Chords, structure?   

       What makes YOU so passionate about music, and be specific.
doctorremulac3, Mar 14 2020
  
      
[annotate]
  


 

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