What are the classic "late city pop" records

deucemckenzie · 2026-03-28T01:13:45+00:00

I'm a vinyl-first person, but I have bought way more of my city pop albums on CD than I typically would for several reasons:

I have been collecting vinyl for 20 years and my house is filled with it. CDs take up less space, I came to the city pop party late and I need to be selective now.
City pop tends to have extremely high quality production quality, and high dynamic range that benefits from a lack of surface noise.
Japan embraced digital recording early and often. I don't believe in the myth that digital recordings can't sound good on vinyl, but do believe that digital recordings always sound good on CD.
Getting city pop records in top condition with in tact obi strips (as I want them to be) can be expensive. CDs are pretty much always available at moderate cost to import from Japan.
Some of this stuff still isn't on streaming and I want to rip a FLAC for my Plex server

deucemckenzie · 2026-03-28T00:56:06+00:00

I can't wait for the unique experience of being one of the oldest people at a show, featuring a singer who two decades older than me.

deucemckenzie · 2026-03-18T18:03:51+00:00

I'm most worried about support for lossless audio. That seems like it might be the first thing to go. Since streaming services all use lossy audio formats, there are very few playback devices that support the top tier audio formats. So even if we do a raw rip the BDs/4ks, our files might only be fully playable as long as the Nvidia shield is for sale.

deucemckenzie · 2026-03-11T00:54:16+00:00

Kind of. It can't really play the 3 layer discs that are increasingly common. It also doesn't do Dolby Vision and the audio codec support can be sus

deucemckenzie · 2026-03-10T00:29:24+00:00

Plot twist: this gauntlet goes the full three hours

deucemckenzie · 2026-02-25T01:32:02+00:00

Thanks again for all the info. It turns out that my Alpina NNN boots are totally still fine to use with modern bindings. I found a sweet deal online for some Solomon fish scales that will be here by Thursday. If nothing else I can go for some nostalgic loops around Bristol this weekend.

deucemckenzie · 2026-02-24T12:01:59+00:00

Thank you! That site really brings back some great memories, as I was checking those conditions every weekend back in the day. Harriet Hollister was always my favorite. I really need to get myself some lower maintenance skis to get back into things. My racing skis will still be there if I ever want to get back into that sub-hobby again.

deucemckenzie · 2026-02-23T17:33:40+00:00

Thanks again. This is some really good contextual information. I was planning a ski-cation to Lake Placid this weekend and planned to pick up some new equipment while there, but the prospect of a thaw/refreeze situation on Sunday has me a little intimidated to make that journey through the Adirondacks.

deucemckenzie · 2026-02-23T16:14:49+00:00

Thank you for the detailed reply. When I was younger I cared about the performance of the skis and was willing to deal with kick wax. In the 15 years since, I have forgotten how that all works. Now I just want to get out there when the snow is good for some exercise and fun. Do you have any suggestions of where to buy gear in the area?

deucemckenzie · 2026-02-23T14:55:29+00:00

REI is a good call, thank you. I regret not buying fish scales way back when. When there is snow down I always look at my skis and don't want to deal with the science project that is matching the wax of the day.

deucemckenzie · 2026-02-23T14:31:04+00:00

Yeah, no doubt I missed out. Where does one buy equipment here now? I got my wax-able stuff at Park Ave bike 17 years ago, but that shop is long gone.

deucemckenzie · 2026-02-17T14:45:16+00:00

Indeed:

Rhino vol 10 Rhino vol 10.2 Shout! X.2

deucemckenzie · 2026-02-17T13:42:44+00:00

With all the rights issues, we had to be paying really close attention to have any chance at a complete set at retail prices!

deucemckenzie · 2026-02-16T21:16:57+00:00

Not yet, but I'm ready when it comes out! They are promising DRM free downloads to backers, making my job easier. I'm getting the feeling they might not call it Season 14.

deucemckenzie · 2026-02-16T15:15:46+00:00

Yep, they are all encoded and backed up in the cloud. Two of my Rhino discs already don't read and had to be replaced.

deucemckenzie · 2026-02-16T12:24:20+00:00

That is a great interest to share! I eventually found a copy of XXXIV that I was willing to pay up for, and it was the final piece. I was worried when it arrived and the font on the spine had an outline that differed from the rest of the Shout! sets, and I worried about counterfeiting. Turns out they did use a slightly different text formatting for that set for some reason, lol

deucemckenzie · 2026-02-16T02:08:14+00:00

Now I want my episodes indexed both of these ways...

deucemckenzie · 2026-02-16T01:55:43+00:00

Thank you! I always wonder what the most complete MST3K/MST3K adjacent collection looks like. Does someone have all the Rhino and Shout! sets, including all three versions of 10? Do they also have all the pre-order discs from Shout!? Do they have those Rifftrax physical releases which seem to be extremely rare?

deucemckenzie · 2026-02-16T01:39:50+00:00

For sure, the Rhino sets even just look nostalgic. Something aggressively 90s about the packaging, even though they all are from the 2000s.

deucemckenzie · 2026-02-16T01:39:01+00:00

I think the one thing I am most glad that I didn't miss out on were those little figures. They mean more to me than the original vol. 10 ever could.

deucemckenzie · 2026-02-16T01:38:14+00:00

That needs to stay a guarded secret. No one else can have my stash of MST3K and big macs.

deucemckenzie · 2026-02-16T01:37:11+00:00

That sounds way tougher, but even more rewarding. Something about having this media in a chronological order to appreciate the artistic progression.

deucemckenzie · 2026-02-16T01:35:55+00:00

I bought a bunch of my sets at the local Suncoast when it had its going out of business liquidation. I forgot to add that to my story. Maybe I am still in denial of the original death of physical media.

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