Skip to content
  • Uncharted Podcast
  • | Ongoing History Podcast
  • Cookie Policy (CA)
Alan Cross' A Journal of Musical Things

  • Home
  • Archive
  • About Alan
  • Speaking Gigs
  • A Shop of Musical Things
  • Newsletter
  • Advertise
Funny/WeirdVinyl

This punk band released a vinyl record THAT SMELLS LIKE WHAT?

May 24, 2025 Alan Cross 0 Comments 3 min read

Look at that headline. Now if I add in the name “Gwyneth Paltrow,” things may become a little clearer. Paltrow, who followers know is interested in the smell of her lady bits, once

Read More
Ongoing History of New MusicVinyl

Ongoing History Daily: The rarest Jack White record

May 28, 2024 Alan Cross 0 Comments 0 min read

Way back in the 1990s, a young Detroit guitar player named Jack Gillis (soon to be rechristened Jack White) worked as an apprentice upholsterer by day with a fellow musician named Brian Muldoon.

Read More
Music NewsVinyl

Can you guess the biggest-selling vinyl record of the 21st century so far? *Don’t pick Taylor Swift.

May 3, 2024 Alan Cross 1 Comment 1 min read

Vinyl has been having a moment since Record Store Day first began in 2008. Since then, some classic records–LPs that were major sellers in the day of vinyl–have seen sales skyrocketed. Every vinyl

Read More
Vinyl

What is half-speed mastering and why should vinyl lovers care?

April 29, 2024 Alan Cross 0 Comments 0 min read

In the pre-CD era, there were all kinds of attempts to make vinyl sound as good as it could. That included things like direct-to-direct recording (time consuming and technically limiting) and something called

Read More
Music IndustryVinyl

Vinyl continues to out-sell and out-gross CDs in Canada

February 8, 2024 Alan Cross 0 Comments 1 min read

Luminate, the company that monitors everything about how we consume music, reports this week that vinyl is still on a tear in Canada. Without counting the sales of used records and any transactions

Read More
An old stack of records sits in front of a shelf full of vinyl in a local record store.
Vinyl

Releasing records on vinyl is getting too expensive for indie musicians

January 15, 2024 Alan Cross 3 Comments 1 min read

A million years ago when I was in university and shopping for music at places like Krazy Kelly’s on Portage Avenue in Winnipeg, I remember being shocked at seeing a new single album

Read More
Vinyl

Three million vinyl albums are going up for sale. Who’s willing to pay?

January 9, 2024 Alan Cross 0 Comments 1 min read

The ARChive of Contemporary Music is a New York City non-profit that has one of the largest vinyl collections in the world. There are at least three million record on its shelves. That

Read More
Vinyl

The BBC is about auction off a lot of rare vinyl

January 8, 2024 Alan Cross 1 Comment 1 min read

The BBC literally (and I’m using that word correctly) has kilometres of shelving for its recorded music collection, something that dates back at least a hundred years. And in a situation familiar to

Read More
Vinyl

Will 2024 be the year of “green” vinyl? Maybe.

December 30, 2023 Alan Cross 0 Comments 0 min read

The proper name for vinyl is “polyvinyl chloride” (PVC.) It’s plastic and plastic is forever. That can create an ecological issue for record collectors. But what if vinyl could be made eco-friendly? Let’s

Read More
Vinyl

How much longer can the vinyl boom last? There are questions.

December 26, 2023 Alan Cross 7 Comments 1 min read

[This was my weekly column for GlobalNews.ca. – AC] I know exactly how many single compact discs I bought this year: Zero. None. The only new CDs to enter my collection came as

Read More
Cool!Vinyl

What do to the microscopic grooves of a record look like up close?

November 3, 2023 Alan Cross 0 Comments 0 min read

This. Cool no? (Via Matt)

Read More
  • ← Previous

Ongoing History of New Music Podcast

Each week, the podcast looks at something from the alt-rock universe, from artist profiles to various thematic explorations. Whatever the episode, you’re definitely going to learn something that you might not find anywhere else. Trust us on this.

Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry

Have I got a story for you! Award-winning Music Historian and host of the chart-topping Ongoing History of New Music Podcast Alan Cross unleashes his next amazing podcast. In every episode, Alan Cross takes you inside unbelievable true stories of crime, murder, scandal, strange deaths, unexplainable events, and the general mayhem from the music industry through the decades. There is a lot of bad behaviour that needs to be talked about. It’s a one-of-a-kind podcast featuring true crime stories from the world of music. OUT NOW!

The Science of Song by Alan Cross

Alan Cross and A Journal of Musical Things Merch

  • Home
  • Archive
  • About Alan
  • Speaking Gigs
  • A Shop of Musical Things
  • Newsletter
  • Advertise

Copyright © 2025 Alan Cross' A Journal of Musical Things. All rights reserved.

Manage Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage {vendor_count} vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}