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Recording music is complicated, and without the crucial assistance of producers and engineers, a lot of great records—not to mention successful musical careers—would not happen. Producers Steve Albini and Michael Cuscuna, two key figures from the music world who departed in recent months, richly deserve to be celebrated.

Though they worked in widely disparate genres—Cuscuna primarily in jazz, Albini in punk and noise rock—they are connected by their extraordinary efforts and unfailing taste. Both were exacting, dedicated, and supremely talented. Without the passion and obsessive nature of this one-of-a-kind pair, such records as Nirvana's In Utero and Mosaic Records' boxed sets, including The Blue Note Hank Mobley Fifties Sessions, to name just two examples, would not exist. Cuscuna and Albini were guides and molders, shaping music and our perceptions of it.

Some 30 years ago, vinyl records seemed to be heading in the direction of the 8-track tape, toward becoming an obsolete format. As everyone knows, vinyl rebounded and has so far avoided that fate (but see this month's As We See It about the status of the Compact Disc). An international association aims to keep it that way.

The Vinyl Alliance was formed in 2019 "to strengthen awareness and the image of vinyl records worldwide," according to the organization's website. The VA is a membership organization with some 40 institutional members including vinyl producers, record companies (including all three major labels), music resellers, record-press makers, pressing plants, and turntable and cartridge manufacturers.

It might be nice if the receiver can connect to a modern TV, which will have either TosLink or HDMI-ARC output, or both. For those of us who still own a bunch of CDs, we might as well include a robust DAC—and maybe even a built-in CD transport. Throw in FM analog and digital tuners, and voilà, you have the R 2500 R, the "21st Century Receiver" from T+A Elektroakustik of Herford, Germany, southwest of Hanover.

It's time to go out on a limb. Are Danny Elfman's Percussion Concerto and the other works on his new album "great music"? Should this classical music, from the former lead singer and songwriter of new wave band Oingo Boingo—who composed film scores for Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, and Spider-Man, and whose music introduces Desperate Housewives and The Simpsons—be in the same conversation with Albéniz, Scriabin, Ligeti, Glass, Gluck, Brahms, and Beethoven, whose work appears on our other Recording of the Month candidate, Yuja Wang's Vienna Recital?

When the CD is gone, and it will be soon, we'll miss it. New CD releases are winding down (footnote 1). In the classical world, the era of big, bargain-priced boxes of CDs—a somewhat recent development—is ending because, after a long, slow descent, retail sales have fallen off a cliff in the past year or so. In pop and rock, if you discover a new band you like, you may or may not be able to buy a CD. Perhaps they'll self-publish a few to sell at concerts; there's a better chance they'll have LPs, assuming they can get time at a vinyl-mastering studio and a pressing plant, both of which are booked to the max. CDs, though, are an afterthought if they're even that.

Vinyl records will likely stay around indefinitely as a collector's artifact, but new CDs are fading fast. This is momentous. CD will be remembered as the last mainstream physical music format. Its passing marks the death of physical music media.

Munich, redux: Western Electric owner Charles Whitener and Sales Director Trent Suggs together gave us a first look at Western Electric’s upcoming products. Dumb me failed to turn on my video until late in the presentation, but below you can catch a bit of Suggs’ presentation.