LATEST ADDITIONS

If a long line at registration is an indication of a show’s success—and it’s certainly one indication—then Home Entertainment 2007, held this weekend at the Grand Hyatt in Manhattan, could be pronounced a success by an hour after it was open to the public. The line was long enough that some people were grumbling—but their complaining stopped when they got in and had a chance see and hear all the neat stuff at the show. Exhibitors John Atkinson talked to at the end of the day seemed very happy with the turnout.

Huckleberry would really like to know.

Bagheera is not amused.

<I>Invention & Technology</I> considers the electric guitar.

Reissues. Hey, I don't care who you are, everyone has a guilty pleasure that's now been reissued on CD, possibly with bonus goodies. What's gonna happen to reissues in the big, new, all&#150digital, all&#150download, all&#150the&#150time world is an easy one: listeners will do the same thing they do with new records, download the tracks they want and leave the lesser tracks as scraps. Funny how it's now possible to think of cuts of meat and record albums in the same breath: bites of choice flesh you eat surrounded by bone, fat and gristle you leave. It must make musicians feel real good to see their collection eviscerated in this way. You can say it serves them right for filling out albums with lesser tracks but then there's that creeping alchemy that happens upon further listening when some of the tracks deep into the record become essential. How many album tracks have you grown fond of after repeated listens versus those that jumped out at you the first time you dropped the needle or pressed play?