The Old Songs are the Best Songs (Feb, 1929)
The Old Songs are the Best Songs
The world’s great music is on Victor Red Seal Records
Let us pause a moment, Gentlemen, and welcome the past. Let us lay aside our invoices and debentures, our politics and our coal-bills. . . . For tonight an old familiar company is with us. . . . Nelly Bly is here, and Old Black Joe . . . Uncle Ned, My Old Kentucky Home . . . Jeanie with the light brown hair . . . Old Folks at Home. . . . And with them their banjos and cotton bales, their slow brown rivers. . . .
Many of these old songs, written by Stephen Foster more than 75 years ago, are known all over the world. Our grandmothers sang them, and our fathers. We ourselves still love them. . . . And now here they are in their entirety, arranged by Nat Shilkret, beautifully played and sung, and collected in a convenient album.
This is the latest of a long series of Victor Red Seal recordings which are bringing to the musical public the world’s most beautiful and important music. Interpreted by the foremost artists and orchestras, recorded with incredible realism by the famous Orthophonic process, they bring within your home the whole horizon of the concert stage. . . . The nearest Victor dealer will gladly play you the Stephen Foster album (four double-faced records, list price $6). Hear it at your first opportunity! . . . Victor Talking Machine Co., Camden, New Jersey, U. S. A.
VICTOR Red Seal RECORDS
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- New Uses for Old Fords Contest! (Jan, 1929) (Jan, 1929)
- Ad: RCA Color TV with Solid Copper Circuit dependability (Apr, 1965)
Six bucks in 1929 works out to about $75 in today’s dollars for probably 25 minutes of music.
A couple of years ago, when the record companies were pushing Apple to allow different prices for songs, a record-company exec was quoted. “We’re tired of Apple making all the money on the iPod.” (paraphrased)
He had no idea that records were originally made in order to sell record PLAYERS. Just as Edison began shooting films to sell his projector, the phonograph companies began recording music to sell hardware.
Naturally, making and selling hardware takes work, so there isn’t the close association between record companies and the hardware manufacturer any more. But he was clueless.
Rick Auricchio: Where did you find that about the phonograph companies? I mean it sounds like one of those convenient urban legends. It doesn’t make economic sense to make your money on the hardware (which is a one time purchase) and dismiss the software of recordings as a marketing tool to sell phonographs. That’s the exact opposite of printer manufacturers today. Relatively low cost of high end printers and pretty expensive ink cartridges.
Well, RCA Victor built and sold phonographs, and they also made records. The software (music) was indeed a way to sell phonographs, just as my example of Edison’s films.
Sorry, Rick I’m still not buying it. It’s like saying that you refine gasoline in order to sell cars or that the TV networks exist in order to sell television sets. Or even that all the studios have conspired to sell DVDs in order to sell DVD players.