Vinyl records in the USSR

One of the alternative The options for listening to music in the modern world are vinyl records, the history of which dates back to the 1950s. Vinyl began to penetrate and spread in the USSR progressivelyand was popular until the advent of cassettes and compact discs.

For a long time classical works were recorded on records, as well as fairy tales for children or manifestos of politicians, but later citizens of the Union could purchase carriers with recordings pop artists. About how the birth culture listening to songs on vinyl, as amateurs tried to get the records foreign performers and who introduced the widespread use of gramophoneswill be discussed in this article.

History of vinyl records in the USSR

There wasn't much musical diversity in the Soviet Union after World War II, and that didn't sit well with me progressive Soviet youth. At the same time, it was problematic to import jazz and rock 'n' roll, which were banned in those years and had become popular in the West. In addition, recordings by musicians who had left the Union could also be heard. impossiblyIn those times the policy of denying everything foreign was actively pursued, and emigrants were considered traitors to the motherland.

They've started distributing illegal drugs. clandestine labels as early as the mid-1940s. In Leningrad Stanislav Filo was one of the first to record music on soft records and to distribute jazz and other music that was not acceptable to the authorities. By 1947, a recording studio "Golden Dog."which existed before Melodia was founded in 1964.

By the '50s, many of those involved in illegal record distribution were locked up under the arrestThe "Golden Dog" has only succeeded in gaining the trust of the subculture. During its existence, the Golden Dog has not only managed to gain the trust of the subculture styloguesThe company's primary audience, but also improve production by starting to make hard plates.

By the '70s, Melodia had started releasing records Soviet In the early 1990s, the number of foreign singers' albums was very high. intricately. Despite this, music lovers managed to come up with ways to get their hands on imported records.

How the hunt for "booty" from abroad was conducted

Although the coveted Western music could be found in illegal shops, collectors were insufficiently re-recorded on cheap material of poor recording quality. Then the hunt for original records began at the blacks the markets, where one could always find the farmer or the so-called "plastomaniacs"who were real connoisseurs of Western art. The importation of foreign goods into the Union was punishable by law, but this did not stop many music lovers.

Soviet lovers of foreign records could purchase speculative records by overstated at prices equal to the monthly income of a factory worker, but it was rare to come into possession of a rare record legally. By the 1980s, clubs could be found in many cities where branches of the Melodia record company had already been established philophonistsThey meet in circles and exchange records not only of domestic artists, but also of foreign ones.

Sometimes fans of music styles banned in the USSR managed to get records through the acquaintanceswho could bring back an original record from a business trip abroad, or find an album of their favourite band in a Melodiya reissue в translation into Russian.

Music on the bones?

Ruslan Bogoslovsky, who in the 50s assembled a homemade apparatus for recording music and founded the legendary "Golden Dog", found out that unnecessary things are suitable for recording music. X-rays. The Soviet developer made sure that the X-ray sheet was soft enough to cut the desired canvas and place the sound there, yet strong enough to hold its shape. It was also the easiest material to get hold of in order to set up production: medical centres disposed of the scans because they were flammable, and then Bogoslovsky's team had a chance to take the X-rays for themselves.

Underground records of this pattern were called "music on ribs", "on bones" or X-ray. Despite the high prevalence of such recordings in the early days of vinyl development in the USSR, their timeframe was brieflyIn order to prolong the life of "music on bones" it was necessary to keep them in one envelope. To prolong the life of the "music on bones" it was necessary to keep it in the same envelope with the conventional with plates.

How gramophone records came about in the first place

The history of gramophone records dates back to the late 19th century, at a time when the gramophone and gramophone needed a medium for recorded sound. Frenchman Charles Crowe was the first to explain the principle of recording and storing sound on disc, and the American inventor of the Thomas Edinson first designed phonograph - a device that records and plays back sound.

By 1887. By Emile Berliner were presented with a recorder and gramophoneHe also developed the idea of recording sound on a disc-shaped device. Thanks to Berliner and his two machines, which could print a run of 500 records, gramophone records have become widespread and have become a major carrier.

Records enjoyed popularity and underwent many changes throughout the 20th century. A revolution in the world of records was the record company's "Columbia." Long Play - a long-playing record with a higher speed. After that, the recording industry began to develop both abroad and in the Soviet Union, and gave music lovers a huge number of qualitative records that are still in demand today.