Queen (band)
Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1970. Their classic line-up was Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor, John Deacon, their earliest works were influenced by progressive rock, hard rock and heavy metal, but the band ventured into more conventional and radio-friendly works by incorporating further styles, such as arena rock and pop rock. Before forming Queen and Taylor had played together in the band Smile. Mercury was a fan of Smile and encouraged them to experiment with more elaborate stage and recording techniques, he joined in 1970 and suggested the name "Queen". Deacon was recruited before the band recorded their eponymous debut album in 1973. Queen first charted in the UK with their second album, Queen II, in 1974. Sheer Heart Attack that year and A Night at the Opera in 1975 brought them international success; the latter featured "Bohemian Rhapsody", which stayed at number one in the UK for nine weeks and helped popularise the music video format. The band’s 1977 album News of the World contained "We Will Rock You" and "We Are the Champions", which have become anthems at sporting events.
By the early 1980s, Queen were one of the biggest stadium rock bands in the world. "Another One Bites the Dust" became their best-selling single, while their 1981 compilation album Greatest Hits is the best-selling album in the UK and is certified eight times platinum in the US. Their performance at the 1985 Live Aid concert has been ranked among the greatest in rock history by various publications. In August 1986, Mercury gave his last performance with Queen at England. In 1991, he died of bronchopneumonia, a complication of AIDS, Deacon retired in 1997. Since 2004, May and Taylor have toured under the "Queen +" name with vocalists Paul Rodgers and Adam Lambert. Estimates of Queen's record sales range from 170 million to 300 million records, making them one of the world's best-selling music artists. Queen received the Outstanding Contribution to British Music Award from the British Phonographic Industry in 1990, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001. Each member has composed hit singles, all four were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2003.
In 2005, Queen received the Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Song Collection from the British Academy of Songwriters and Authors. In 2018, they were presented the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1968, guitarist Brian May, a student at London's Imperial College, bassist Tim Staffell decided to form a band. May placed an advertisement on a college notice board for a "Mitch Mitchell/Ginger Baker type" drummer; the group called themselves Smile. While attending Ealing Art College in west London, Tim Staffell became friends with Farrokh “Freddie” Bulsara, a fellow student from Zanzibar of Indian Parsi descent. Bulsara, working as a baggage handler at London’s Heathrow Airport, felt that he and the band had the same tastes and soon became a keen fan of Smile. In 1970, after Staffell left to join the band Humpy Bong, the remaining Smile members, encouraged by now-member Bulsara, changed their name to "Queen" and performed their first gig on 18 July; the band had a number of bass players during this period.
It was not until February 1971 that they settled on John Deacon and began to rehearse for their first album. They recorded four of their own songs, "Liar", "Keep Yourself Alive", "The Night Comes Down" and "Jesus", for a demo tape, it was around this time Freddie changed his surname to "Mercury", inspired by the line "Mother Mercury, look what they've done to me" in the song "My Fairy King". On 2 July 1971, Queen played their first show in the classic line-up of Mercury, May and Deacon at a Surrey college outside London. Having attended art college, Mercury designed Queen's logo, called the Queen crest, shortly before the release of the band's first album; the logo combines the zodiac signs of all four members: two lions for Leo, a crab for Cancer, two fairies for Virgo. The lions embrace a stylised letter Q, the crab rests atop the letter with flames rising directly above it, the fairies are each sheltering below a lion. There is a crown inside the Q and the whole logo is over-shadowed by an enormous phoenix.
The whole symbol bears a passing resemblance to the Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom with the lion supporters. The original logo, as found on the reverse-side of the cover of the band's first album, was a simple line drawing. Sleeves bore more intricate-coloured versions of the logo. In 1972, Queen entered discussions with Trident Studios after being spotted at De Lane Lea Studios by John Anthony. After these discussions, Norman Sheffield offered the band a management deal under Neptune Productions, a subsidiary of Trident, to manage the band and enable them to use the facilities at Trident to record new material, whilst the management searched for a record label to sign Queen; this suited both parties, as Trident were expanding into management, under the deal, Queen were able to make use of the hi-tech recording facilities used by other musicians such as the Beatles and Elton John to produce new material. Roger Taylor described these early off-peak studio hours as "gold dust". In 1973, Queen signed to a deal with Trident/EMI.
By July of that year, they released their eponymous debut album, an effort influenced by heavy metal and progressive rock. The album was received well by critics.
Made in Heaven
Made in Heaven is the fifteenth and final studio album by the British rock band Queen, released on 6 November 1995 by Parlophone Records in the United Kingdom and by Hollywood Records in the United States. It was the band's first release after the death of lead singer Freddie Mercury in 1991. Following Mercury's death, guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor, bass guitarist John Deacon worked with vocal and piano parts that Mercury recorded before his death, adding new instrumentation to the recordings. Both stages of recording and after Mercury's death, were completed at the band's studio in Montreux, Switzerland; the album debuted at number 1 in the UK. The album became the band's best-selling studio album, selling over 19 million copies around the world; the cover for the album has two different photos: the CD cover photo was shot at dusk, depicting Irena Sedlecká's Mercury sculpture located at Lake Geneva in Montreux, Switzerland, on the front, with May and Deacon gazing at the Alps on the rear cover.
The album was recorded in a much different way from Queen's other studio albums. In early 1991, having completed work on Innuendo, some months before his death, Freddie Mercury recorded as many vocals as he could, with the instruction to the rest of the band to complete the songs later. Put to tape during this time were "A Winter's Tale", "Mother Love" and what would become "You Don't Fool Me". In the documentary Champions of the World, May described these sessions with Mercury as such: By the time we were recording these other tracks after Innuendo, we had had the discussions and we knew that we were on borrowed time because Freddie had been told that he would not make it to that point. I think our plan was to go in there whenever Freddie felt well enough, just to make as much use of him as much as possible, we lived in the studio for a while and when he would call and say,'I can come in for a few hours', our plan was to just make as much use of him as we could, you know he told us,'Get me to sing anything, write me anything and I will sing it and I will leave you as much as I can.'
Producer David Richards added: The thing, unusual about these last songs they recorded was that Freddie insisted on doing final vocals. He had always wanted to wait until all the music was completed before he would put his final vocal on. There must have been a reason for this, I think he felt there wasn’t enough time to have it completed in time. Which means that he wanted these things to be released, there’s no other reason why he would have done that. After Mercury's death, the band returned to the studio in 1993 to begin work finishing the tracks. May has described in interviews that Taylor and Deacon had begun some work in 1992, while May was on tour promoting his Back to the Light album. Upon his return in 1993, May felt they were not on the right path with the music and that they more or less started from scratch with the three of them working together with producer David Richards. With less than an album's worth to work with, the band decided to revisit recorded material; the band did not discuss whether Mercury had any input before his death regarding which songs might be considered.
The idea was to rework them as Queen songs. In 2013, Brian May said about the album " was the best Queen album we made, it has so much beauty in it. It was a long process, painstakingly put together. A real labour of love." Years before Mercury started recording solo material, he created a sound clip of himself experimenting on the piano at Musicland Studios in Munich in 1980 during the sessions of The Game. For the use of this album, the song was extended to two minutes and 32 seconds; the more classical section, without Mercury's improvisation, was put together by John Deacon. From Mercury's Mr. Bad Guy, this song, along with the other Mercury solo track "I Was Born to Love You", was reworked to a "Queen sound" and Mercury's original vocals were placed over the new music. "Let Me Live" is a rock ballad, which features a rare sharing of the vocals between Mercury and Taylor. The song was completed in 1995; this track was recorded with Rod Stewart during sessions for the 1984 album The Works. Once finished in 1995 for Made in Heaven, Queen made one 11th-hour change to the song to avoid legal action.
Part of the backing vocals featured lyrics too resembling Erma Franklin's "Piece of My Heart". The problematic bit was mixed out and the track was released. Promo cassettes from the US feature the unaltered backing track. Early Mexican and Dutch CD pressings are reported to have this alternate version as well. "Mother Love" was the final song co-written by Mercury and May, was Mercury's last vocal performance. Mercury's vocals for "Mother Love" were recorded 13–16 May 1991. On his website, May discussed. Upon reaching the final verse, Mercury told May that he had to go and "have a rest", but that he would return and finish it. After that, Mercury never made it back to the studio, thus May sang the last verse on the track; the song features a sample from a live sing along session recorded at Queen's famous 1986 concert at Wembley Stadium, a sample from the intro of the studio version of "One Vision" and "Tie Your Mother Down". It features a sample from a
Double album
A double album is an audio album which spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold records and compact disc. A double album is though not always, released as such because the recording is longer than the capacity of the medium. Recording artists think of double albums as comprising a single piece artistically. Another example of this approach is Works Volume 1 by Emerson Lake and Palmer, where side one featured Keith Emerson, side two Greg Lake, side three Carl Palmer, side four was by the entire group. Since the advent of the compact disc, albums are sometimes released with a bonus disc featuring additional material as a supplement to the main album, with live tracks, studio out-takes, cut songs, or older unreleased material. One innovation was the inclusion of DVD of related material with a compact disc, such as video related to the album or DVD-Audio versions of the same recordings; some such discs were released on a two-sided format called DualDisc. Due to the limitations of the gramophone record, many albums released on the format were under 40 minutes long.
This has led to record labels re-releasing two of these albums on one CD, thus making a double album. The same principles apply to the triple album. Packages with more units than three are packaged as a box set; the first double album was recordings from the Carnegie Hall Concert headlined by Benny Goodman, released in 1950 on Columbia Records, that label having introduced the LP two years earlier. Studio recordings of operas have been released as double, triple and quintuple albums since the 1950s; the first rock double album was Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde released on May 16, 1966. It was soon followed by Frank Zappa & the Mothers Of Invention's debut record, Freak Out!, released on June 27, 1966. The best-selling double album of all time is Michael Jackson's HIStory: Past and Future, Book I with over 33 million copies sold worldwide; the second best-selling double album and best-selling concept double album is Pink Floyd's The Wall with over 30 million copies worldwide. Other best-selling double albums are The Beatles' White Album, The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St.
Billy Joel's Greatest Hits I & II, Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde, The Smashing Pumpkins' Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. The double album has become less common since the decline of the vinyl LP and the advent of compact discs. A single LP had two sides, each of which had a capacity of up to 30 minutes, for a maximum of 60 minutes per record. A single CD has a capacity of 80 minutes: accordingly, many old double albums on LP have been re-released as single albums on CD. However, other double albums on LP are re-released as double albums on CD, either because they are too large for a single CD, or to retain the structure of the original. There are double-LP albums, such as Mike Oldfield's Incantations and Chick Corea's My Spanish Heart, for which some tracks were removed or shortened for a single 74-minute CD release, though both were re-released in their entirety when 80-minute CDs were developed. Though the average album length has increased since the days of LPs, it remains rare for an artist to produce more than 80 minutes of studio material for one album.
Thus, the double album is now more seen in formats other than studio albums. Live albums that either present all or most of a single concert, or material from several concerts, are released as double albums. Compilations such as greatest hits records can often comprise double albums. Soundtracks and scores are commonly released on two CDs; the double album format is frequently used for concept albums. The double album is not obsolete when it comes to studio albums, however; some artists still produce a large enough quantity of material to justify a double album. For example, progressive rock band The Flower Kings have released four double albums out of eleven studio albums. Barenaked Ladies recorded 29 songs for their first original album following the completion of their contract with Reprise Records, including several songs that were cut from past albums under that contract. Without needing to get a label's approval, they were able to release a 25-track "deluxe edition" double album Barenaked Ladies Are Me, as well as releasing the album as two separate single albums, as well as a variety of other formats.
Guns N' Roses famously insisted on releasing their Use Your Illusion I & II albums but separately so as not to burden their fans with the expense of having to buy a double CD set. Nellie McKay fought with her label to get her debut album, Get Away from Me released as a double album though the material would have fit on a single disc, she has been said to be the first female artist to have a double album as a debut. A recent development is the release of a double studio album in which the two discs contain different mixes of the sam
LP record
The LP is an analog sound storage medium, a vinyl record format characterized by a speed of 33 1⁄3 rpm, a 12- or 10-inch diameter, use of the "microgroove" groove specification. Introduced by Columbia in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry. Apart from a few minor refinements and the important addition of stereophonic sound, it has remained the standard format for vinyl albums. At the time the LP was introduced, nearly all phonograph records for home use were made of an abrasive shellac compound, employed a much larger groove, played at 78 revolutions per minute, limiting the playing time of a 12-inch diameter record to less than five minutes per side; the new product was a 12- or 10-inch fine-grooved disc made of PVC and played with a smaller-tipped "microgroove" stylus at a speed of 33 1⁄3 rpm. Each side of a 12-inch LP could play for about 22 minutes. Only the microgroove standard was new, as both vinyl and the 33 1⁄3 rpm speed had been used for special purposes for many years, as well as in one unsuccessful earlier attempt to introduce a long-playing record for home use by RCA Victor.
Although the LP was suited to classical music because of its extended continuous playing time, it allowed a collection of ten or more pop music recordings to be put on a single disc. Such collections, as well as longer classical music broken up into several parts, had been sold as sets of 78 rpm records in a specially imprinted "record album" consisting of individual record sleeves bound together in book form; the use of the word "album" persisted for the one-disc LP equivalent. The prototype of the LP was the soundtrack disc used by the Vitaphone motion picture sound system, developed by Western Electric and introduced in 1926. For soundtrack purposes, the less than five minutes of playing time of each side of a conventional 12-inch 78 rpm disc was not acceptable; the sound had to play continuously for at least 11 minutes, long enough to accompany a full 1,000-foot reel of 35 mm film projected at 24 frames per second. The disc diameter was increased to 16 inches and the speed was reduced to 33 1⁄3 revolutions per minute.
Unlike their smaller LP descendants, they were made with the same large "standard groove" used by 78s. Unlike conventional records, the groove started at the inside of the recorded area near the label and proceeded outward toward the edge. Like 78s, early soundtrack discs were pressed in an abrasive shellac compound and played with a single-use steel needle held in a massive electromagnetic pickup with a tracking force of five ounces. By mid-1931, all motion picture studios were recording on optical soundtracks, but sets of soundtrack discs, mastered by dubbing from the optical tracks and scaled down to 12 inches to cut costs, were made as late as 1936 for distribution to theaters still equipped with disc-only sound projectors. Syndicated radio programming was distributed on 78 rpm discs beginning in 1928; the desirability of longer continuous playing time soon led to the adoption of the Vitaphone soundtrack disc format. 16-inch 33 1⁄3 rpm discs playing about 15 minutes per side were used for most of these "electrical transcriptions" beginning about 1930.
Transcriptions were variously recorded inside out with an outside start. Longer programs, which required several disc sides, pioneered the system of recording odd-numbered sides inside-out and even-numbered sides outside-in so that the sound quality would match from the end of one side to the start of the next. Although a pair of turntables was used, to avoid any pauses for disc-flipping, the sides had to be pressed in a hybrid of manual and automatic sequencing, arranged in such a manner that no disc being played had to be turned over to play the next side in the sequence. Instead of a three-disc set having the 1–2, 3–4 and 5–6 manual sequence, or the 1–6, 2–5 and 3–4 automatic sequence for use with a drop-type mechanical record changer, broadcast sequence would couple the sides as 1–4, 2–5 and 3–6; some transcriptions were recorded with a vertically modulated "dale" groove. This was found to allow deeper bass and an extension of the high-end frequency response. Neither of these was a great advantage in practice because of the limitations of AM broadcasting.
Today we can enjoy the benefits of those higher-fidelity recordings if the original radio audiences could not. Transcription discs were pressed only in shellac, but by 1932 pressings in RCA Victor's vinyl-based "Victrolac" were appearing. Other plastics were sometimes used. By the late 1930s, vinyl was standard for nearly all kinds of pressed discs except ordinary commercial 78s, which continued to be made of shellac. Beginning in the mid-1930s, one-off 16-inch 33 1⁄3 rpm lacquer discs were used by radio networks to archive recordings of their live broadcasts, by local stations to delay the broadcast of network programming or to prerecord their own productions. In the late 1940s, magnetic tape recorders were adopted by the networks to pre-record shows or repeat them for airing in different time zones, but 16-inch vinyl pressings continued to be used into the early 1960s for non-network distribution of prerecorded programming. Use of the LP's microgroove standard began in the late 1950s, in the 1960s the discs were reduced to 12 inches, becoming physically indistinguishable from ordinary LPs.
Unless the quantity required was small, pressed discs were a more economica
Concept album
A concept album is an album in which its tracks hold a larger purpose or meaning collectively than they do individually. This is achieved through a single central narrative or theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, or lyrical. Sometimes the term is applied to albums considered to be of "uniform excellence" rather than an LP with an explicit musical or lyrical motif. There is no consensus among music critics as to the specific criteria; the format originates with folk singer Woody Guthrie's Dust Bowl Ballads and was subsequently popularized by traditional pop singer Frank Sinatra's 1940s–50s string of albums, although the term is more associated with rock music. In the 1960s, several well-regarded concept albums were released by various rock bands, which led to the invention of progressive rock and rock opera. Since many concept albums have been released across numerous musical genres. There is no clear definition of what constitutes a "concept album". Fiona Sturges of The Independent stated that the concept album "was defined as a long-player where the songs were based on one dramatic idea – but the term is subjective."
A precursor to this type of album can be found in the 19th century song cycle which ran into similar difficulties in classification. The broad definitions of a "concept album" could encompass all soundtracks, cast recordings, greatest hits albums, tribute albums, Christmas albums, live albums; the most common definitions refer to an expanded approach to a rock album, or a project that either revolves around a specific theme or a collection of related materials. AllMusic writes, "A concept album could be a collection of songs by an individual songwriter or a particular theme — these are the concept LPs that reigned in the'50s... the phrase'concept album' is inextricably tied to the late 1960s, when rock & rollers began stretching the limits of their art form." Author Jim Cullen describes it as "a collection of discrete but thematically unified songs whose whole is greater than the sum of its parts... sometimes assumed to be a product of the rock era." Author Roy Shuker defines concept albums and rock operas as albums that are "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, narrative, or lyrical....
In this form, the album changed from a collection of heterogeneous songs into a narrative work with a single theme, in which individual songs segue into one another."Speaking of concepts in albums during the 1970s, Robert Christgau wrote in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies, because "overall impression" of an album matters, "concept intensifies the impact of the Who's Quadrophenia and Mary McCaslin's Way Out West and Millie Jackson's Caught Up in more or less the way Sgt. Pepper intended, but the sheer historical audacity of Joni Mitchell's For the Roses or Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols has a comparable effect. It's a species of concept that pushes a rhythmically unrelenting album like The Wild Magnolias or a vocally irresistible one like Shirley Brown's Woman to Woman, to a deeper level of significance." Rick Wakeman, keyboardist from the band Yes, considers the first concept album to be Woody Guthrie's 1940 album Dust Bowl Ballads. The Independent regards it as "perhaps" one of the first concept albums, consisting of semi-autobiographical songs about the hardships of American migrant labourers during the 1930s.
In the late 1940s, the LP record was introduced, with space age pop composers producing concept albums soon after. Themes included exploring wild life and dealing with emotions, with some albums meant to be played while dining or relaxing; this was accompanied in the mid 1950s with the invention of the gatefold, which allowed room for liner notes to explain the concept. Singer Frank Sinatra recorded several concept albums prior to the 1960s rock era, including In the Wee Small Hours and Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely. Sinatra is credited as the inventor of the concept album, beginning with The Voice of Frank Sinatra, which led to similar work by Bing Crosby. According to biographer Will Friedwald, Sinatra "sequenced the songs so that the lyrics created a flow from track to track, affording an impression of a narrative, as in musical comedy or opera.... First pop singer to bring a consciously artistic attitude to recording." In the early 1960s, concept albums began featuring in American country music, however the fact went unacknowledged by rock/pop fans and critics who would only begin noting "concept albums" as a phenomenon in the decade, when albums became aligned with countercultural ideology, resulting in a recognised "album era" and the introduction of the rock concept album.
The author Carys Wyn Jones writes that the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, the Beatles' Revolver and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Who's Tommy are variously cited as "the first concept album" for their "uniform excellence rather than some lyrical theme or underlying musical motif". Other records have been claimed as "early" or "first" concept albums; the 100 Greatest Bands of All Time states that the Ventures "pioneered the idea of the rock concept album years before the genre is acknowledged to have been born". Another is the Beach Boys' Little Deuce Coupe. Writing in 101 Albums That Changed Popular Music, Chris Smith commented: "Though albums such as Frank Sinatra's 1955 In the Wee Small Hours and Marty Robbins' 1959 Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs had introduced concept albums, Little Deuce Coupe was the first to comprise all original material r
Phonograph record
A phonograph record is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove starts near the periphery and ends near the center of the disc. At first, the discs were made from shellac. In recent decades, records have sometimes been called vinyl records, or vinyl; the phonograph disc record was the primary medium used for music reproduction throughout the 20th century. It had co-existed with the phonograph cylinder from the late 1880s and had superseded it by around 1912. Records retained the largest market share when new formats such as the compact cassette were mass-marketed. By the 1980s, digital media, in the form of the compact disc, had gained a larger market share, the vinyl record left the mainstream in 1991. Since the 1990s, records continue to be manufactured and sold on a smaller scale, are used by disc jockeys and released by artists in dance music genres, listened to by a growing niche market of audiophiles; the phonograph record has made a notable niche resurgence in the early 21st century – 9.2 million records were sold in the U.
S. in 2014, a 260% increase since 2009. In the UK sales have increased five-fold from 2009 to 2014; as of 2017, 48 record pressing facilities remain worldwide, 18 in the United States and 30 in other countries. The increased popularity of vinyl has led to the investment in new and modern record-pressing machines. Only two producers of lacquers remain: Apollo Masters in California, MDC in Japan. Phonograph records are described by their diameter in inches, the rotational speed in revolutions per minute at which they are played, their time capacity, determined by their diameter and speed. Vinyl records may be scratched or warped if stored incorrectly but if they are not exposed to high heat, carelessly handled or broken, a vinyl record has the potential to last for centuries; the large cover are valued by collectors and artists for the space given for visual expression when it comes to the long play vinyl LP. The phonautograph, patented by Léon Scott in 1857, used a vibrating diaphragm and stylus to graphically record sound waves as tracings on sheets of paper, purely for visual analysis and without any intent of playing them back.
In the 2000s, these tracings were first scanned by audio engineers and digitally converted into audible sound. Phonautograms of singing and speech made by Scott in 1860 were played back as sound for the first time in 2008. Along with a tuning fork tone and unintelligible snippets recorded as early as 1857, these are the earliest known recordings of sound. In 1877, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph. Unlike the phonautograph, it could both record and reproduce sound. Despite the similarity of name, there is no documentary evidence that Edison's phonograph was based on Scott's phonautograph. Edison first tried recording sound on a wax-impregnated paper tape, with the idea of creating a "telephone repeater" analogous to the telegraph repeater he had been working on. Although the visible results made him confident that sound could be physically recorded and reproduced, his notes do not indicate that he reproduced sound before his first experiment in which he used tinfoil as a recording medium several months later.
The tinfoil was wrapped around a grooved metal cylinder and a sound-vibrated stylus indented the tinfoil while the cylinder was rotated. The recording could be played back immediately; the Scientific American article that introduced the tinfoil phonograph to the public mentioned Marey and Barlow as well as Scott as creators of devices for recording but not reproducing sound. Edison invented variations of the phonograph that used tape and disc formats. Numerous applications for the phonograph were envisioned, but although it enjoyed a brief vogue as a startling novelty at public demonstrations, the tinfoil phonograph proved too crude to be put to any practical use. A decade Edison developed a improved phonograph that used a hollow wax cylinder instead of a foil sheet; this proved to be both a better-sounding and far more useful and durable device. The wax phonograph cylinder created the recorded sound market at the end of the 1880s and dominated it through the early years of the 20th century. Lateral-cut disc records were developed in the United States by Emile Berliner, who named his system the "gramophone", distinguishing it from Edison's wax cylinder "phonograph" and American Graphophone's wax cylinder "graphophone".
Berliner's earliest discs, first marketed in 1889, only in Europe, were 12.5 cm in diameter, were played with a small hand-propelled machine. Both the records and the machine were adequate only for use as a toy or curiosity, due to the limited sound quality. In the United States in 1894, under the Berliner Gramophone trademark, Berliner started marketing records of 7 inches diameter with somewhat more substantial entertainment value, along with somewhat more substantial gramophones to play them. Berliner's records had poor sound quality compared to wax cylinders, but his manufacturing associate Eldridge R. Johnson improved it. Abandoning Berliner's "Gramophone" tradem
Unforgettable (Nat King Cole song)
"Unforgettable" is a popular song written by Irving Gordon and produced by Lee Gillette. The song's original working title was "Uncomparable", however the music publishing company asked Gordon to change it to "Unforgettable"; the song was published in 1951. The most popular version of the song was recorded by Nat King Cole in 1951 from his album Unforgettable, with an arrangement written by Nelson Riddle. A non-orchestrated version of the song recorded in 1952 is featured as one of the seven bonus tracks on Cole's 1998 CD reissue of 1955's otherwise instrumental album, Penthouse Serenade. Cole recorded the tune anew in a stereo version of the Riddle arrangement, for the album The Nat King Cole Story. In 1991, after Elvis Presley's musical director Joe Guercio had the idea, Cole's original 1951 recording of the song was edited and remixed to create a duet with his daughter, Natalie; the remixed version reached number 14 on the U. S. Billboard Hot 100 and number three on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart.
The song won three awards at the 34th Annual Grammy Awards: Song of the Year, Record of the Year and Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance. Nat Cole's original recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2000. American singer Natalie Cole released a cover of the song on her album Unforgettable... with Love. The song, remixed as a "virtual duet" with her father, Nat King Cole, reached number 3 on the US Adult Contemporary chart; the performance of the song at the 1992 Grammy Awards was released on the 1994 album Grammy's Greatest Moments Volume I. Semprini with Rhythm Acc. recorded it in London on March 26, 1952 as the third melody of the medley "Dancing to the piano - Part 1. Hit Medley of Foxtrots" along with "Slow Coach" and "Cry", it was released by EMI on the His Master's Voice label as catalog number B 10263. Other cover versions were performed or recorded by: Nas on "Can't Forget About You"
