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[mama]

I thought I was experiencing the Mandela effect because I cannot find my digital copy of Manhattan anywhere on my hard drive and it includes the 2 bonus tracks (England/Birds). Could someone possibly DM me a link?

Also I noticed that Manhattan is no longer on Spotify, Bandcamp or even on Jeff's Discography page on his site....does this album really exist or was it just my imagination?

*Twilight Zone theme music plays*....

Any help would be much appreciated!

[jefflewis]

Hmm, I saw this message and I was like "whaaaa??"

I took a look at my website discography and I do see Manhattan still there:

https://thejeffreylewissite.com/music/discography/

And I see Manhattan on Spotify here:

https://open.spotify.com/album/2OftZbwAIM9dLC2z0X5EMI?si=KyE7zVVgShuTS2G7AdRQoQ

Manhattan has never been on my Bandcamp because it's still under contract to Rough Trade, until Oct 2022 I think, so I'll probably put it on my Bandcamp later this year (unless some new rights-extention deal gets negotiated by Rough Trade maybe).

But as for mysteries of stuff not being able to be found on your hard drive, I just don't know!
I've been worried recently that technology might be moving beyond the era of the Mp3 and Aiff etc, because I have so much music on my laptop in my iTunes, stuff that I bought/downloaded, or pulled in from CDs, tons of stuff that I love. But the tech-world is really sort of anti-file nowadays and pro-cloud/streaming. I still love using my iPod nano, loading it up with albums or audiobooks or songs, from my iTunes, but I need to be able to use the USB cable to connect the old ipod to the laptop... They don't make iPods anymore, or the iPod cable, or even the USB ports. So when my current gear eventually starts to get so old that it breaks down, I just hope I can keep using the wealth of stuff that I have in my iTunes library. I understand the appeal of cloud-based listening, but I have so much weird rare stuff that I don't think would ever be findable on Soundcloud/Spotify/streaming/etc... I'd hate to lose access to this music!

[misshelenc]

Oh I see. I was hoping my brought on issue day copy was some kind of rare recording now! Glad it is out there for the masses more though! X
_________________
You don’t put your life into your books. You find it there.

[jefflewis]

I think you copy IS still rare, because all of the elaborate art and fold-out packaging that I created for the Manhattan album (and many of the other "official" albums) is, of course, impossible to see if you only access the album from streaming. And, furthermore, the record labels have let the CDs/LPs go totally out of print! So all that artwork and packaging design stuff that I did is just lost to time... except for the people who already own those packages! Until they might get reprinted someday. But with the way the whole music industry is really moving away from physical packaging, these things might never get reprinted? Who knows. Nobody thought cassettes would ever get reprinted and cassettes made a hip comeback in recent years. So anything's possible!

[misshelenc]

Yes music rolls around, as the LPs song goes, vinyl has its day and came back, then tape, what next, the mini disc?
I’m so glad I have the actual records, the art work is worth owning, even more so now I know they may be difficult to replace, although it will be a shame if any of them get damaged and need replacing at some point.
_________________
You don’t put your life into your books. You find it there.

[jefflewis]

I'm trying to work on doing a vinyl repress of the "Manhattan" album because it's been out of print for a little while. At the moment I'm asking if the folks at Rough Trade Records are able to locate the pressing plates, or whatever they are called... the master plates... or the mothers... there's a confusing amount of terms and I can't remember what's what, but I know that it's easier and cheaper to do vinyl repressings if the original plate-things can be located! Working on it.