You Are What I’m All About
The New Birth
Birth Day, 1972
There is SO much music that hasn’t been re-released on cd. That said, there is a surprising amount that has been.
The first soul record I ever bought was a (stellar) New Birth album, so when I came across this one for $1, a few years ago, I was quick to snatch it up. It didn’t disappoint and turned out to have a few classic samples including this track, which was used for Junior M.A.F.I.A.’s “Players Anthem.” I quickly recorded it to MP3 and walked around the city for a few weeks, reveling in the crackly vinyl sound, looking at other people listening to iPods thinking, “you’re not listening to what i’m listening to!” (it’s the simple (petty) pleasures, right?)
Well, at my last temp job, I noticed a CD on my friend Constance’s desk that had a re-sized image of the crazy album cover from the first New Birth album that I bought. I picked it up: The New Birth – Golden Classics. Track 8 = You Are What I’m All About.
Of the 650 or so tracks that I’ve recorded from vinyl, I’ve found about 125 of them on CD at some later point in time.
It takes me…say, 9 minutes to record a 4 minute (average) song between plugging my mixer into my laptop, setting the recording level, recording the song, edited the ends, converting it to MP3 and filling in the info in the tag. 9 minutes x 125 songs = 18 hours and 45 minutes.
It’s a good thing I see it all as a means to the end of knowing great music, well at least most of the time…
>> songs are available for two weeks (digi) [5.4 MB]
>> songs are available for two weeks (vinyl) [5.3 MB]
