Flexi disc

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Flexi disc in a magazine

The flexi disc (also known as a phonosheet or sonosheet) is a phonograph record made of a thin vinyl sheet with a molded-in spiral stylus groove, and is designed to be playable on a normal phonograph turntable. Flexible records were commercially introduced as the Evatone Soundsheet in 1960, but were previously available in the Soviet Union as roentgenizdat or bones, underground recordings on x-ray plates.

Before the advent of the compact disc, flexi discs were sometimes used as a means to include sound with printed material such as magazines and music instruction books. A flexi disc could be molded with speech or music and bound into the text with a perforated seam, at very little cost and without any requirement for a hard binding. One problem with using the thinner vinyl was that the stylus's weight, combined with the flexi disc's low mass, would sometimes cause the disc to stop spinning on the turntable and become held in place by the stylus. For this reason, most flexi discs had a spot on the face of the disc for a coin, or other small, flat, weighted object to increase the friction with the turntable surface and enforce consistent rotation. If the turntable's surface is not completely flat, it is recommended that the Flexidisc be placed on top of a full sized record.

The Soviet-era bones or roentgenizdat are so-called because one cheap, reliable source of suitable raw material is discarded medical x-rays, which have the added benefit of including ready-made and interesting images. The name roentgenizdat comes from the combination of roentgen ray (another word for X-ray) and samizdat ("self-published", or underground literature). X-ray records emerged as an underground medium for distribution of jazz music, which was prohibited in the Soviet Union after World War II. This format was also particularly attractive to politically suppressed punk rock music and the DIY punk ethic, since other publishing outlets were much less accessible.

A two sided flexible sheet record of the underwater sounds produced by humpback whales was included with the January 1979 issue of National Geographic magazine. With a production order of 10,500,000 copies, it became the largest single press run of any record at the time. This record was broken in 1997 with the 11,420,000 copies of Bran Van 3000's "Drinkin' in LA" flexi disc included with the February 1997 issue of High Times.

"Flexi Disc" is also the title of a spoken-word track recorded by British electronic band The Human League in 1978. Included as a bonus track on the rerelease of their album Reproduction, the "song" is a discussion between the band members concerning the advantages and disadvantages of the flexi disc format.