The flexi disc (also known as a phonosheet, Sonosheet or Soundsheet, a trademark) is a phonograph record made of a thin, flexible vinyl sheet with a molded-in spiral stylus groove, and is designed to be playable on a normal phonograph turntable.
Flexible records were commercially introduced as the Eva-tone Soundsheet in 1962. [1] [2] They were very popular among children and teenagers and mass-produced by the state publisher in the Soviet government.[ citation needed ]
Before the advent of the compact disc, flexi discs were sometimes used as a means to include sound with printed material such as magazines and music instruction books. [3] A flexi disc could be moulded with speech or music and bound into the text with a perforated seam, at very little cost and without any requirement for a hard binding. [4] One problem with using the thinner vinyl was that the stylus's weight, combined with the flexi disc's low mass, would sometimes cause the disc to stop spinning on the turntable and become held in place by the stylus. [3] For this reason, most flexi discs had a spot on the face of the disc for a coin, or other small, flat, weighted object to increase the friction with the turntable surface and enforce consistent rotation. If the turntable's surface is not completely flat, it is recommended that the flexi disc be placed on top of a full sized record. [5]
In Japan, starting in the early 1960s, Asahi Sonorama published the monthly Asahi Sonorama magazine which included an inserted flexi disc ("Sonosheet"). [6]
Every year between 1963 and 1969, the Beatles made a special Christmas recording which was made into a flexi disc and sent to members of their fan club. While the earlier discs largely contained 'thank you' messages to their fans, the later Christmas flexis were used as an outlet for the Beatles to explore more experimental areas; the 1967 disc, for example, became a pastiche of a BBC Radio show and even included a specially recorded song entitled "Christmas Time (Is Here Again)." [7]
In 1964, the National Geographic Society released Song and Garden Birds of North America, which included a 6 sound discs (12-sides) bound alternating with pages giving the titles and birds on the recordings. [8] The work was done by Arthur A. Allen and Peter Paul Kellogg of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology.
The August 1965 issue of National Geographic Magazine included a soundsheet of the funeral of Sir Winston Churchill narrated by David Brinkley. The recording has the sounds of the funeral procession to St. Paul's, a hymn sung by the leaders of the world, and an excerpt of the funeral sermon. Excerpts from various recordings of Churchill's speeches are included. The recording ends with bagpipes accompanying Churchill's coffin to the funeral barge on the Thames, as the public phase of the funeral ends. [9]
During the 1970s, MAD magazine included Soundsheets in several special editions. One was a dramatization of Gall in the Family Fare, its parody of All in the Family, packaged with MAD Super Special #11 (1973). The Summer 1980 edition of MAD Super Special (published in 1979) featured "It's a Super-Spectacular Day", a song with eight different versions pressed into eight concentric grooves; which version was played depended on where the needle was dropped onto the disc. Another issue included "It's a Gas", a song whose lyrics were belches. [10] [11] There was also a "Mad Disco" special issue containing a Soundsheet.
ABBA/Live 77 was a special single-sided promo gold flexi disc given as a bonus to children who sold magazines and books at Christmas for Jultidningsförlaget, a publishing company using door sales as their main distribution channel. The disc contained excerpts from the Swedish group's recent concert appearance in Australia.
A two-sided flexible sheet record of the songs of humpback whales (produced by Roger Payne) was included with the January 1979 issue of National Geographic Magazine. With a production order of 10,500,000 copies, it became the largest single press run of any record at the time.
Computer magazines began to provide software in audio form "Vinyl Data" on flexi discs from June 1979 until 1986, as an alternative to a reader manually typing in a printed program code listing. They were intended to be dubbed by the user into cassette tape recorder, which can be played by the computer's tape drive to load the program. [12]
While flexi-discs were usually just used as occasional giveaways, from 1980 to 1982, Flexipop made a speciality of giving away such a disc with each edition. Compact discs and the internet have rendered flexi discs largely obsolete, but gimmick discs are still produced occasionally: Amelia's Magazine included a one-sided Libertines flexi of What Katie Did. [13] [14]
American manufacturer Eva-Tone, believed to be one of the last manufacturers of flexi discs, stopped production of the product in August 2000. [4]
As of December 2010, Pirates Press, an independent record manufacturing company based in San Francisco, California, US, has started production of flexi discs of various sizes and color.
In November 2010 extreme metal magazine Decibel began releasing flexi discs with each issue, starting with the January 2011 issue. The content on the disc features "100 percent exclusive songs" from artists that have been previously featured in the publication. [15] [16]
In October 2011, the Los Angeles-based record company, Side One Dummy Records, teamed up with Alternative Press to offer a Title Fight flexi disc (containing 2 previously unreleased B-Sides) along with a year of AP subscription as a limited edition offer. Due to manufacturing delays the discs arrived packaged with the November issue of AP magazine in mid December. [17]
On April 2, 2012, Third Man Records released 1000 flexi discs tied to blue helium balloons into the air in Nashville, Tennessee. The discs contained the first release of "Freedom At 21", a track on Jack White's debut solo album, Blunderbuss . It is estimated that fewer than 100 of the discs will ever be found and they will be a valuable collector's item for many years.[ citation needed ]
On April 20, 2012, Domino Recording Company released a zine exclusively for Record Store Day that included five individual, multi-colored flexi-discs, each containing a song by Dirty Projectors, Real Estate, Cass McCombs, John Maus, and Villagers. The Dirty Projectors disc was previewed on April 19 by frontman Dave Longstreth via a YouTube video of him playing the record on a turntable. [18] [19]
In 2012, Rookie online magazine released its first hardcopy edition, Rookie Yearbook One, [20] which contained a red flexi disc with two songs written specifically for the site: "I Don't Care" by Dum Dum Girls and "Rookie" by Supercute!.
In the summer 2013 issue of German fanzine PUNKROCK!, the punk rock band Riots, based in Oslo, Norway, gave away a free 2-track exclusive flexi disc to the 200 odd subscribers of the fanzine. This flexi featured 2 tracks, "Riots" and "We're All Slaves". [21] This was pressed by Pirates Press out of the US.
Shortly before the release of the 2014 Foo Fighters album Sonic Highways , some of the pre-orders came with a cover of Two Headed Dog on flexi disc.
In the summer 2015, PizzaDischi, an independent record manufacturing company based in Italy, has started production of flexi discs too, in collaboration with the European Slimer Records independent label run by Panda Kid members, dedicated to limited and rare edition of worldwide artists.[ citation needed ]
In 2021, Lizzo started selling flexi discs of her song "Rumours" as part of her merchandising. [22]
Flexi discs were mass-produced from 1964 to 1991 by the Soviet government as inserts in the popular Krugozor magazine for teens. The appearance of the Soviet flexi disc was always the same, vivid blue, and the discs are familiar to virtually anyone who grew up in the Soviet Union and even the post-Soviet era. In 1969 in addition to the successful audio-magazine Krugozor, the government also launched the audio-magazine for children Kolobok, which also consisted of flexi disks.
Because of a shortage of vinyl recording material (and official censorship of some Western music) during the Soviet era, bootleg recordings known as Ribs , Bones or roentgenizdat were produced on discarded medical X-ray prints. The musician Stephen Coates of UK band The Real Tuesday Weld has created the X-Ray Audio Project devoted to these. [23] [24] [25]
"Flexi Disc" is also the title of a spoken-word track recorded by electronic band The Human League on a flexi disc which accompanied their 12" single "The Dignity of Labour" in 1978. Re-released as a bonus track on their album Reproduction , the song is a discussion between the band members concerning the advantages and disadvantages of the flexi disc format and the possibility of including one with the album to provide commentary. [3] [26]
A phonograph, later called a gramophone, and since the 1940s a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of recorded sound. The sound vibration waveforms are recorded as corresponding physical deviations of a spiral groove engraved, etched, incised, or impressed into the surface of a rotating cylinder or disc, called a "record". To recreate the sound, the surface is similarly rotated while a playback stylus traces the groove and is therefore vibrated by it, very faintly reproducing the recorded sound. In early acoustic phonographs, the stylus vibrated a diaphragm which produced sound waves which were coupled to the open air through a flaring horn, or directly to the listener's ears through stethoscope-type earphones.
A phonograph record, a vinyl record, or simply a record or vinyl is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts near the outside edge and ends near the center of the disc. The stored sound information is made audible by playing the record on a phonograph.
Scratching, sometimes referred to as scrubbing, is a DJ and turntablist technique of moving a vinyl record back and forth on a turntable to produce percussive or rhythmic sounds. A crossfader on a DJ mixer may be used to fade between two records simultaneously.
The overwhelming majority of records manufactured have been of certain sizes, playback speeds, and appearance. However, since the commercial adoption of the gramophone record, a wide variety of records have also been produced that do not fall into these categories, and they have served a variety of purposes.
Agoraphobic Nosebleed is an American grindcore band. Its line-up has changed often over the years, with guitarist and drum programmer Scott Hull being the only continuous member. The current line-up includes vocalist Jay Randall, and Richard Johnson of Enemy Soil and Drugs of Faith, along with John Jarvis of Pig Destroyer and Fulgora on bass guitar.
The Code Is Red...Long Live the Code is Napalm Death's eleventh studio album and was recorded at Foel Studio, Llanfair Caerinion with producer Russ Russell. It was released on 25 April 2005. A music video for "Silence Is Deafening", directed by Roger Johansson, was released later that year.
A multisided record is a type of vinyl record that has more than one groove per side. This technique allows hidden tracks to be encoded on LPs, 45 rpms and 78 rpms. On a disc that has a multi-groove, whether the listener plays the main track or the hidden track depends on where the stylus is cued.
Decibel is a monthly heavy metal magazine published by the Philadelphia-based Red Flag Media since September 2004. Its sections include Upfront, Features, Reviews, Guest Columns and the Decibel Hall of Fame. The magazine's tag-line is currently "Extremely Extreme" ; the editor-in-chief is Albert Mudrian.
From December 1963 to December 1969, English rock group the Beatles sent out spoken and musical messages on flexi disc to members of their official fan clubs in the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US) each Christmas. An LP compilation of all seven, titled From Then to You in the UK and The Beatles Christmas Album in the US, was sent out in 1970.
Private Eye, the British fortnightly satirical magazine, has produced various comedic audio recordings since its founding in 1961.
Reproduction is the debut studio album released by British synthpop group The Human League. The album was released in 1979 through Virgin Records.
Long Yellow Road and the nearly identical release, Tosiko Akiyosi Recital [sic] is a jazz trio recording made by the jazz pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi in Tokyo in February of 1961.
The Dignity of Labour is a 12" vinyl record released in 1979. The tracks were written and performed by The Human League featuring a line-up of Martyn Ware, Ian Craig Marsh and Phil Oakey. It was released as the follow-up to their earlier single "Being Boiled" on Fast Product Records, the label that the band released their early singles.
The conservation and restoration of vinyl discs refers to the preventive measures taken to defend against damage and slow degradation, and to maintain fidelity of singles, 12" singles, EP’s, and LP’s in 45 or 33⅓ rpm 10" disc recordings.
Flexipop was a British pop music magazine that ran from 1980 to 1983, which featured a flexidisc in each issue. The magazine was launched in 1980 by ex-Record Mirror journalists Barry Cain and Tim Lott. One of the most notable issues was the February 1981 disc featuring Adam and the Ants performing a version of the Village People hit "Y.M.C.A.", called "A.N.T.S.". Flexipop's last released flexidisc was "In The Mix" by Haysi Fantayzee in 1983.
Asahi Shimbun Publications Inc. is the publishing arm of The Asahi Shimbun Company, publishing books, magazines, and manga. It replaced Asahi Sonorama (朝日ソノラマ) on 1 April 2008 just after it went bankrupt.
Ribs, also known as music on ribs, jazz on bones, bones or bone music (roentgenizdat), are improvised gramophone recordings made from X-ray films. Mostly made through the 1950s and 1960s, ribs were a black market method of smuggling in and distributing music that was banned from broadcast in the Soviet Union. Banned artists included emigre musicians, such as Pyotr Leshchenko and Alexander Vertinsky, and Western artists, such as Elvis, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, Ella Fitzgerald and Chubby Checker.
"F.O.D. " is a song by Canadian extreme metal band Slaughter. Written by bandmembers Dave Hewson, Terry Sadler and Ron Sumners and produced by Brian Tailor, the song was included in the band's 1987 debut album, Strappado, released in 1987 via Diabolic Force and Fringe Records.
The Thompson Twins Adventure is a 1984 graphic adventure game that was distributed by Computer and Video Games magazine as a promotional 7" flexi disc "freebie" along with its October 1984 issue. The game is based on the Thompson Twins' single "Doctor! Doctor!", and features the Thompson Twins band members as the protagonists. The unusual storage format of the game showcases an experimental technique pioneered by the London-based Flexi Records label, and places the game alongside a small handful of other games distributed on grooved disks. This format never became established and The Thompson Twins Adventure is today valued more for its nostalgic and artifactual value than for its ludological aspects which have been uniformly panned by critics.
Spoiled Identity EP is an EP released by American crossover thrash band Iron Reagan. It was originally released as a free online download and as a 7-inch flexi disc in the June 2014 issue of Decibel. Recorded during the sessions for The Tyranny of Will, its tracks "The Living Skull", a tribute to Dave Brockie, and "Your Kid's an Asshole" were later featured as part of that album. Two additional tracks, "U Lock the Bike Cop" and "Glockin' Out" were included as bonus tracks on a 2015 limited edition 12-inch vinyl release.
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