Shit take.

You can draw a direct line from Queen’s songwriting and four-part harmonies through the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Four Freshmen. Add Led Zeppelin to that list and you have the entire foundation of Queen.

Honestly, fans like you ruined Queen for me. I was completely obsessed with Queen through my teens and early twenties, but everywhere they’re discussed online, it’s always this superiority nonsense. Queen being great doesn’t make the Beatles suck. Those are different ideas. I really think the fans are a big part if the reason I eventually burned out on them.

Every wannabe edgelord loves to trot out their “Beatles suck” opinion to get people riled up. Really, it just fits the “Hamlet sucks” trope of people who are unaware of historical context. “What’s so great about Hamlet? It’s just a predictable plot tied together with cliches.” In reality, the plot is predictable and the writing cliched because it was so revolutionary for its time everything that has come since has been imitating it.

Same with “Citizen Kane is boring” and “Seinfeld isn’t funny.” There is so much of modern filmmaking that originated from Citizen Kane, and Seinfeld set the bar for every sitcom that came after.

Likewise, the Beatles completely revolutionized pop music. You don’t have to enjoy their music personally, but it’s beyond ignorant to say they sucked.

It’s a pity that she doesn’t update her website anymore. She used to post things there fairly regularly, but she’s been silent since 2020.

You’re really overselling how big of a deal gold plated connectors are. Here’s a stereo 1/8” TRRS cable for $1.54 that has gold plated connectors. You even have to scroll down the page to see where they mention it because it’s seriously not that big of a deal.

I have a bunch of old audio gear where every time I use it I have to jiggle and rotate the audio connectors to clear the corrosion or else the audio will cut out and yes, I’ve used contact cleaner. It doesn’t have to look visibly rusty to be an issue.

Could add Steely Dan to the “one member remaining” list. Donald Fagen is the only original member left and still tours with a backing band as Steely Dan.

When Rock'n'Roll started sheet music was the big seller. They had just introduced vinyl as a medium.

You’ve got the right idea, but I’d like to clear up this timeline a little. While LPs and 45s made from vinyl were still new at the dawn of Rock’n’Roll, recorded music had already been commercially available for about 50 years in the form of lacquer and shellac 78s and cylinders. Recorded music sales actually surpassed sheet music way back in the mid 1920s. A lot of the pre-rock recorded music was classical, traditional, or tame popular jazz like foxtrots which, like you pointed out, was a major contrast to Rock’n’Roll in the world of “white people music.”

Another part of what made Rock’n’Roll different from the perspective of commercial success was that it was targeted at teenagers. It was a relatively new idea in the post-war years by companies like Coca-Cola to target products and advertising directly to kids and hook lifelong customers early on.

Interesting. I think I’ve listened to Camel once it twice before, but never got around to Harmonium or Alan Parsons. It’s been so long since I did any musical exploration though, I’m probably due to branch out a bit. I always go on such a deep dive when I find something I like that I’ll find myself knowing everything about a few bands while still having huge blind spots in the broader picture.

Deceptichum has you covered on the sci-fi and tea, so I’ll ask about the prog. That sub is one of the few things I still miss from the old site.

I’m all about ELP, Utopia, Gentle Giant, and Rush. Somehow Yes and Genesis never really hit the spot for me.

And Artie Shaw (who the OOP is probably referring to whether he realizes it or not) has a huge discography where he just goes nuts on the clarinet.

• Ragtime

To make it worse, I found out the hard way that FH4 on Steam doesn’t have wheel support, so if I wanted to use a wheel (with full FFB support, not just a wheel pretending to be an Xbox controller), I had to re-buy on the Microsoft store.

Really, for most people, there’s not much reason to buy the new ones, except that they keep de-listing the old ones and making them impossible to buy.