REPETITION OF RECORDS

Radio Record, Volume VIII, Issue 41, 19 April 1935, Page 5

REPETITION OF RECORDS

HE ghastly repetition of mediocre records’ is the gist of a complaint voiced. in: our correspondence columns to-day by a South Canterbury reader. This complaint is no new one and it is one which must find a certain amount of sympathetic agreement among many sections of the listening public. We have all heard Gracie . Fields singing, time and time again, about the little pudding basin; we have heard "If I Had Napoleon’s Hat," "Old Father Thames,"’ the Roosters’ Concert Party, and "Laughing Gas," a good many times, too. And when we learn that four national stations in New Zealand have between 60,000 and 70,000 records in their libraries it makes us pretty mad. But, on investigation, we discover that all that glistens is not gold. Of those thousands of records many of them are duplicates, reducing the number of actual] titles to about 20,000. And, of this 20,000 records, a very large percentage is composed of different versions and recordings of the same tune. For instance there are about 60 different recordings of "The Blue Danube." This tune is a particularly sore point with many listeners. There have been complaints-quite legitimate ones, too- that ""The Blue Danube" has been | played as many as half-a-dozen times from the one sta- . tion in the same day! This is quite probable because it _has been recorded under so many different titles. It may crop up in a recording labelled ‘Viennese Waltzes again "Waltzes of Yesterday," a third time in "A Strauss Medley," a fourth time in the musical score of the play "Waltzes from Vienna."" If the programme organiser had the time to play every piece of music through before he put it into a programme well and good. But he hasn’t-and that’s how the repetition occurs. Actually considerable care is taken to see that the same record is not repeated from the same station too often. As each one is played it is stamped with the date and care is taken to see that that particular recording is not played again for some time. As recordings of dance music and talkie successes pass their youth they are dispatched to the alternative stations for a brief span of life there. For instance, there is not a national station in the country to-day that -ould muster up recordings of such once-popular songs as ‘Singin’ In the Rain" and "Broadway Melody."’ While these tunes were in demand they were given to the public frequently; as they became a trifle passe they were put on the retired list and finally discarded. As it becomes easier to tune in to any of the YA stations one is apt to forget whether one has heard "Little Man, You’ve Had a Busy Day" twice in one day from 2YA, or whether it was played once from 1YA and the other time from 2YA. However, we are warmly in sympathy with those listeners who consider that there are some recordings that should be retired and we look forward to the day when several recordings by Gracie Fields, Cecily Courtneidge and the Roosters’ Concert Party are duly cremated.