[HN Gopher] "Blown Away Guy": Iconic music image
___________________________________________________________________
 
"Blown Away Guy": Iconic music image
 
Author : pmoriarty
Score  : 95 points
Date   : 2022-05-14 16:37 UTC (6 hours ago)
 
web link (www.vintag.es)
w3m dump (www.vintag.es)
 
| Terry_Roll wrote:
| The Blown Away Guy campaign did boost Maxell's sales as did their
| Israelites advert (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clD6J9OmkJI)
| and The Skids (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gib916jJW1o), they
| were up against TDK at the time and to be honest the TDK audio
| cassettes probably just had it.
| 
| Sticking with an Audiophile theme, I was surprised to learn its
| 50yrs of the Technic's SL 1200!?!
| https://www.technics.com/global/home/sl1200/50th-anniversary...
| 
| In the UK in the early 90's you couldn't get these for love nor
| money, not A stock, not B stock, not C stock because of the
| Rave/Acid house culture taking off (along with the de'rigueur
| Stanton cartridge), which is why this
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7ZxRs45tTg) will bring back
| some massive grins for some people! You know who you are! ;)
 
  | TacticalCoder wrote:
  | > Sticking with an Audiophile theme, I was surprised to learn
  | its 50yrs of the Technic's SL 1200!?!
  | https://www.technics.com/global/home/sl1200/50th-anniversary...
  | 
  | I'm trying to fetch one. At 1099 EUR it's kinda a steal: only
  | 100 EUR more than a non-anniversary / unlimited one. And the
  | (non limited) used ones anyway can easily go for 800 EUR.
  | 
  | It's not as epic as the 1995 limited run of 5000 gold-plated
  | units (which, I'm sure, are now worth a little fortune so I'll
  | never have one of these), but at 12 000 units that 50th
  | anniversary run looks like a real bargain and the closest I can
  | get to that 1995 collectible one.
  | 
  | Are you getting one?
 
    | Terry_Roll wrote:
    | I think the MK4's were technically the best on paper but from
    | what I've read they were only sold in Japan. Dont forget
    | things like leaded solder is no longer used today.
    | 
    | Maybe one day but dont have the time for it.
 
  | thunderbong wrote:
  | Your last link is incorrect
 
    | Terry_Roll wrote:
    | I dont understand?
 
      | TacticalCoder wrote:
      | Bicep Glue is relatively recent. It's not from the early
      | 90s: people may not realize they're showing images where
      | insane rave parties took place.
      | 
      | FWIW I've got the original version of Bicep Glue in my car
      | as well as a one hour non-stop repetitive loop. I sometimes
      | listen to that when driving. I love it.
 
        | Terry_Roll wrote:
        | > Bicep Glue is relatively recent. It's not from the
        | early 90s: people may not realize they're showing images
        | where insane rave parties took place.
        | 
        | OIC, yeah, now whilst its not Helter Skelter, Fantazia or
        | something like this
        | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOMT3bRJXOo I think The
        | Prodigy discography perhaps best mirrors the evolution of
        | the music scene & mood in the UK through this time.
        | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSTBFZ-To2E
        | 
        | What alot of people dont know is its probably MI5 we have
        | to thank for Ecstasy and the US Army. So the US Army
        | rediscovered it and the spooks flooded the country to
        | stop the fighting on the football terraces (no seating
        | back then) as depicted in films like Football factory,
        | but MI5 will deny it as it also spawned the darker side
        | like the film Essex Boys.
        | 
        | The intro is the interesting bit here:
        | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3931692/
 
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| The speaker has to be a JBL L100, right?
 
| Gunax wrote:
| I had not seen this before, but I have seen many parodies of it
| which retrospectively make sense.
| 
| I found this collection of some of them:
| https://youtu.be/hmmcgSgt5_c
| 
| When i was a kid, we used to call these 'Simpsons moments'
| referring to the feeling of seeing the parody before the
| original. As the Simpsons has many cultural references, but is
| also popular with kids, many of us who grew up watching it had
| various 'now I get it' moments.
| 
| What's interesting is that's it's not obvious that there is a
| parody or reference at all if one is not familiar. I remember the
| Simpsons having terminator, 2001, and many other film references
| that I would have an aha moment years later when i finally
| understood it.
 
| numbers wrote:
| I've been looking for this for a long time but couldn't put a
| good description to it since I saw it as a kid.
 
| drfuchs wrote:
| Blown-Away Guy may be the most iconic still image, but I'd say
| the most iconic moving image with sound was the commercial for
| Memorex cassette tape with Ella Fitzgerald and the "Is it Live,
| or is it Memorex?" tagline:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeeuT3ciqpI It was so popular,
| there were various sequels.
 
| martyvis wrote:
| Maxwell may have won the tape print ad war, but TDK definitely
| buried this TV ad in my brain in the 80's. (I think the singer is
| Aussie, so I wonder if this was also a global commercial).
| https://youtu.be/W_cH8Wi0Ggo
 
| omginternets wrote:
| All these years I thought the company name was Maxwell, not
| Maxell. I can't be the only one...
 
  | [deleted]
 
  | glouwbug wrote:
  | Berenstain Bears
 
    | omginternets wrote:
    | Exactly!
 
  | [deleted]
 
  | yboris wrote:
  | Internet Comment Etiquette - 'Mandela Effect' ;)
  | 
  | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6cOkZbWZME
 
  | dqpb wrote:
  | Other timeline
 
  | ohyoutravel wrote:
  | Wow no joke I used their cassette and vhs tapes extensively as
  | a child and this is the first moment I realized it was not
  | "Maxwell."
 
| jordemort wrote:
| As a teenager, I had a modified version of this hanging on my
| room; someone had added a yawning cat on top of the speaker, and
| re-captioned it "Tuna Breath."
| 
| Back in my day we walked uphill to school both ways in the snow
| and bought our memes on paper at Spencer's Gifts.
 
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| My memories are very fuzzy but I feel like Maxell tapes lived up
| to the hype and they were better than the usual dreck I had. I'd
| put my "good stuff" on any Maxell I could find.
 
| rogual wrote:
| Also referenced in the Simpsons: https://tenor.com/view/milhouse-
| simpsons-tv-blasting-thrillh...
 
| zh3 wrote:
| As a Bauhaus fan, reading the article was "Eh? It was Peter
| Murphy" - and then I found it was a different ad in the UK.
 
  | rufus_foreman wrote:
  | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZUIxGJ-ykI
 
  | smegsicle wrote:
  | nice save at :25
 
| dylan604 wrote:
| Oh man, the embedded youtube clip of the spot is priceless in the
| fact that there is an hiss so dominate in the audio just as if I
| was listening to one of the discussed Maxell tapes! It had me
| looking for the NR button.
 
  | danachow wrote:
  | Even with a standard bias tape, with a halfway non shitty deck
  | one could do a little bit better than that though. Linear VHS
  | audio which this clearly is (on an aged tape) has especially
  | bad SNR and response, much worse than a compact cassette. On
  | the other hand, HiFi VHS audio for a time was basically
  | practically the best at home recordable audio format (reel to
  | reel was cool but quite a bit less common).
  | 
  | I'm not sure what speed that tape is running at but I'm going
  | to guess LP, + the effects of age +/- dirty tape heads --
  | someone with too much time on their hands could analyze it and
  | figure it out. It looks like the original ad was shot on 16mm
  | film.
 
    | omginternets wrote:
    | What's NR and SNR?
 
      | aaronbrethorst wrote:
      | noise reduction and signal to noise ratio, presumably.
 
      | mh- wrote:
      | NR = Noise Reduction
      | 
      | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_noise-
      | reduction_system
      | 
      | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise_reduction
 
      | danachow wrote:
      | NR is noise reduction. It's the thing that made Dolby a
      | household name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_noise-
      | reduction_system
      | 
      | SNR is signal to noise ratio.
 
        | newsclues wrote:
        | Wasn't surround sound what made Dolby a household name to
        | the later generation?
 
        | chasil wrote:
        | Dolby B Noise reduction was followed by Dolby C some
        | years later. This was visible in the market first, and
        | very prominent to later users of cassettes in HiFi
        | systems.
        | 
        | I still have a deck that implements Dolby B and C, as
        | well as dbx NR.
        | 
        | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_noise-
        | reduction_system
        | 
        | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dbx_(noise_reduction)
 
        | danachow wrote:
        | By the time surround sound was brought about in the 80s,
        | Dolby was already a pretty well recognized brand and the
        | Double D symbol associated with noise reduction on audio
        | cassettes. And it's doubtful whether Dolby would have
        | been around to bring Surround sound to market if it
        | weren't for their success with tape NR.
        | 
        | Adults with disposable income introduced to Dolby
        | Surround in the 80s for their home theater were still
        | commonly using audio cassettes (no other recordable
        | medium in the US really took off until CD-Rs - MiniDiscs
        | had a small following, DAT even smaller and DCC failed
        | completely (and probably just as well)) - so it's not
        | even a later generation. However, it wasn't uncommon for
        | a household to have multiple HiFi systems and maybe a
        | Walkman or two - while Dolby Surround and home theater
        | was comparatively less common.
 
        | newsclues wrote:
        | Sorry later generation of humans.
        | 
        | Between cassette and surround sound there wasn't much
        | brand awareness for people who weren't around for the era
        | of tapes being popular.
        | 
        | As an 80s baby, I had no clue about Dolby tape
        | technology, they are (to me) surround sound as that was
        | becoming a consumer product around when Twister came out.
 
        | dylan604 wrote:
        | That's like saying Apple never created a product before
        | the iPhone, or that MTV never played music videos
 
        | Wistar wrote:
        | Perhaps although I have always associated the name with
        | noise reduction.
 
    | dylan604 wrote:
    | I'm aware the sound wasn't from a cassette, but it's
    | strikingly ironic to me. Very fitting.
    | 
    | Coincidentally, I used to record a weekend radio show that
    | was on for 6 hours straight on to VHS tape HiFi tracks for
    | playback later without having to flip the cassette.
 
      | danachow wrote:
      | Indeed, was not ragging on your comment. The opposite...
      | now that cassettes are hipster Hi-Fi these days for some
      | dumb reason. Compact cassettes were a fantastic design and
      | set of engineering compromises for their time - a time that
      | has long passed.
 
        | KerrAvon wrote:
        | What's really ludicrous is that you cannot currently buy
        | a new cassette player with good sound quality. With
        | vinyl, you can buy an excellent new turntable if you're
        | willing to throw money at it. You cannot do that with
        | casettes. Utterly pointless.
 
        | dylan604 wrote:
        | Good! There are some things that just need to go away.
        | Cassette tapes, Zunes, Geo Metros, etc.
 
        | Maursault wrote:
        | > now that cassettes are hipster Hi-Fi these days for
        | some dumb reason
        | 
        | That's really ridiculous. But when tracking, I like to
        | give artists the choice of various R2R tape formats, as
        | the technology got really very good before it was
        | abandoned[1], and with it comes one of what are really
        | non-linear effects, tape compression or tape saturation,
        | which happen to sound pretty good when properly executed.
        | Some people really love The Beatles production quality
        | and want even thinner, slower tape.
        | 
        | But I know that's not what you were talking about. Analog
        | tape cassettes iirc had 1/8" width of tape for 2 stereo
        | tracks in opposite directions, basically a half-track
        | stereo tape at 1+7/8ips, so effectively 4 slow mono
        | tracks each 1/32" wide. The wider and faster the tape the
        | better fidelity, so even metal cassettes were very poor
        | quality, even compared to most consumer 1/4" R2R, and
        | especially compared to 16-bit CD audio.
        | 
        | [1] Actually, tape was never completely abandoned, as
        | tape formats are still produced and available, and there
        | are even boutique R2R manufacturers, and even the
        | ridiculously expensive profusely audiophile selections
        | are still somehow compelling.[1a][1b]
        | 
        | [1a]
        | https://thereeltoreelrambler.com/2020/05/16/introducing-
        | the-...
        | 
        | [1b] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc4UgRXD22o
 
  | WalterGR wrote:
  | NR = Noise Reduction
 
| pfarrell wrote:
| Another contemporary parody I remember is from the comic Bloom
| County.
| 
| https://www.gocomics.com/bloomcounty/2009/07/27/
| 
| (Don't be fooled by the url date, that's just the date gocomics
| reran it)
 
| [deleted]
 
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-05-14 23:00 UTC)