Ramon Pipin
Bye Bye Vinyl

Listening notes

Ramon Pipin's Bye Bye Vinyl was released in 1990 on Secret Records (2) under catalog number 718029. The release takes the form of a CD, a format detail that gives the album's title a certain self-referential quality, given that the disc arrived at a moment when compact disc was asserting itself as a commercial force and vinyl was widely being declared obsolete.

The album is catalogued under Pop and presents fourteen tracks with a total running time that extends well past the hour mark. The tracklist is conducted largely in French, with titles such as "Qu'est-ce Qu'elles Font Dans La Salle De Bains ?," "J' Fais Des Trucs Fous," "Dimanche Soir," and "Premier Baiser" suggesting an engagement with everyday domestic and personal subjects that is common to French pop of the period. The closing stretch of the tracklist broadens its geographical and imaginative scope somewhat, with "Si Tu Vas A Rio" and the notably titled "Uranus, Neptune Ou Pluton," the latter running just under five minutes and standing as the album's longest track. One title, "No Lo So," departs from the French of its surroundings into Italian, adding a small multilingual note to the record.

Track lengths across the album are varied. The opener, "Parfaite," runs under two minutes at one minute and fifty-eight seconds, while several tracks fall comfortably in the three-to-four-minute range typical of pop formatting. "Me Voila" at four minutes and forty-three seconds and the closing "Uranus, Neptune Ou Pluton" at four minutes and fifty-eight seconds represent the programme's more extended moments.

The title track, "Bye Bye Vinyl," appears at position ten, placing it near the centre of the back half rather than as a concluding statement, a structural choice that leaves several tracks to follow it before the album closes.

This is an unreviewed draft. All facts require independent verification before publication.