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The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records, Volume 1

Over a decade ago, I looked up from my computer screen at all the media I’d taken for granted as being somehow necessary. Books, magazines, CDs (or tapes or records), DVD (or VHS tapes or films) and newspapers had all been the default method for storing, transporting and retrieving quantities of static information. This was no longer the case, even if not every publisher had come to realize this fact. Text, video and audio could be accessed more easily and more affordably on the Web. Existing solely in electric form was now the default. Content would need a reason to justify existing in physical form.

Since then, a number of creators have risen to the challenge, creating unique experiences that can only be appreciated through physical contact with the object, like Chris Ware’s Building Stories, or T-Post Magazine, or our own Callithump!, a magazine created as a set objects distributed in toy capsule vending machines.

Jack White’s Third Man Records, in collaboration with Revenant Records, has gone above and beyond meeting the challenge with The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records, Volume 1. At first the $399 price tag seems steep, but when you look at what is included, and the quality of the design and craftsmanship, it is amazing they’re able to offer it for so little:

  • 800 newly-remastered digital tracks, representing 172 artists
  • 200+ fully-restored original 1920s ads and images
  • 6x 180g vinyl LPs pressed on burled chestnut colored vinyl w/ hand-engraved, blind-embossed gold-leaf labels, housed in a laser-etched white birch LP folio
  • 250 page deluxe large-format clothbound hardcover art book
  • 360 page encyclopedia-style softcover field guide containing artist portraits and full Paramount discography
  • Handcrafted quarter-sawn oak cabinet with lush sage velvet upholstery and custom-forged metal hardware
  • First-of-its-kind music and image player app, allowing user mgmt of all tracks and ads, housed on custom-designed USB drive

 Go to their website to really get an appreciation for the care and attention they put into this. Be sure to watch their video.

They are taking some of the earliest commercially available recorded music and giving it new life and a new audience by rethinking the medium and its relevance as a physical object.

The whole package is a bold move on their part. Most “packaged” music falls in the “fetish object” category. The casual listener will be content with just a digital download, but true fans will pay the extra for physical objects because we feel more of a connection to the artists. It’s why vinyl is making a comeback while CD sales are declining, and why I’m willing to spend $53 for the Newspaper Edition of Radiohead’s King of Limbs when I won’t buy it on CD. But Paramount Records doesn’t have the huge fan base that contemporary artists can appeal to. Jack White could have made this box all about himself and it would have sold orders of magnitude more copies. Instead, he chose to create a thing of beauty as well as an archive of one of the most important labels in American music history and an important work of music scholarship.

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An Art Museum Designed for Taking Selfies

An Art Museum Designed for Taking Selfies.

Art in Island has a brilliant solution to the problem of selfies in museums: create work that is intended for selfies. I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with museums and galleries. It can be a truly wondrous experience to see the actual hand of the creator in a work instead of a reproduction. You can see things that are never reproduced and feel a direct connection to someone separated from you by centuries and half a world. On the other hand, the exclusivity and the enforced viewer/object separation reinforces the “Art is something someone else does,” attitude I despise. The trend of selfies in a museum makes this even worse, making the museum experience not about connecting with the art but turning it into Something to be Seen With. Museums are right to ban them, and anyone who takes a selfie in a museum should be ashamed of themselves.
However, Art in Island is a completely different story. The art becomes complete only in the selfie. Instead of diminishing the art, the selfie taker becomes a collaborator in the creative process. Instead of distancing the viewer from the art, the viewer is forced to think about the original intent of the artwork and if they are going to enhance or subvert that message. What a great way to break down the boundaries between creator and viewer!

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