I love playing records. Playing them not in the form of a digital download (paid for, of course, well, most of 'em), not in the form of a cassette, not in the form of a CD, not even in the form of an Edison Cylinder. I like them in a good ol' slab of black (in most cases, black) vinyl with a hole in the middle. I wanna look at both sides and have this mental anguish of whether to play "side one" or "side two". Truth be told, I usually play both sides all the way through.
Playing records hasn't always been this way. I did buy my first records with my very own money in the late 70's with the likes of "Wings Greatest" (I'm at an age where I honestly asked, "You mean Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?") and then subsequently The Beatles 1962-1966 and The Beatles 1967-1970, better known as the Red and Blue records. My albums came on red and blue vinyl. I also bought a batting glove that day, all for about $20 on sale at K-Mart. I played the crap out of these. I re-listened to them recently and they do sound surprisingly good despite the (to use today's vernacular) "play counts". I've always taken good care of my records but more on that in another post.
Most of my early vinyl consisted of what became known as "classic rock". I built a modest collection of albums up til about 1986. I didn't buy that many records post 1986 because CD's were really the thing so I figured "Why buy more albums when I'm gonna get a CD player soon enough?" Inexplicably, I didn't get a CD player 'til 1989.
Once I got the CD player my record collection suddenly became, like for so many others, obsolete. It had gone the way of Beta video tapes, 8-Tracks, and the powdered wig. My record player lived in a closet. I don't think I bought another piece of vinyl 'til 1993 when Pearl Jam's Vitalogy because it was released a week earlier on vinyl before the CD. The next vinyl release I bought was Son Volt's Wide Swing Tremolo in 1998 for the same reason, it was released on vinyl a week before the actual CD release. It wasn't until about 2003 that I slowly became converted or that I came back to vinyl "full circle", pun very much intended. I slowly began to find plentiful slabs of glorious used vinyl! I sifted through bins at garage sales and what record stores that remained in this world began to stock vinyl again. I mean stocked records, not just a token few or a milk crate of records in the corner. Entire sections of the store reverted back to vinyl! Then artists began to release their new material on vinyl. It even became hip with the "hipsters" and buying vinyl became the rage with all the kids. New records come with a digital download for people to still listen to their records on their iPod. This was the greatest idea in the download era.
To me, listening to vinyl is how music is really meant to be heard. I've heard all the stories of a "warmer" sound with an actual record and while I can agree with that, I just like the idea of listening to vinyl actually creates a good "listening" atmosphere. You have to actually spend time with a record, decide on which side, listen, spend time with the liner notes, stare endlessly at the jacket or gatefold, turn the record over, put on another record. I listened to Led Zeppelin II for the first time in years (FM radio overload kept me from this record for eons), I opened the gatefold and I was transported back to being 17 years old star-gazing at the gatefold of Zep II. Larger than life, indeed.
It's funny, as I write this first post of the new year praising the spinning of the black circle, I've been listening to all digital music in the form of mp3's on shuffle. Go figure. Enjoy your day and best of luck in the most important of life decisions, "side one or side two?"
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