Full circle, back to vinyl.
I remember as a kid and teenager, going to the record store and buying records, and then returning home with them to spend the evening listening to them, reading the liner notes, and studying the album art. I did that for a long time even during the advent of cassette tapes and CD’s, but somewhere around 15 years ago, I stopped.
With the ushering in of the internet age and more particularly with iTunes and downloadable music, I made the move from CD’s to pure digital, and became a downloading machine. I began to acquire more and more music, but at the same time found myself actually listening to it less. I would download album after album, but wouldn’t have or make the time to sit down and listen to it because i was too busy getting more.
After a few years of this i realized that I missed the whole music experience I used to get from buying an album and sitting down to listen to it and only it. I missed the experience of having something tangible in hand and being able to look at something while listening to the music. I missed being able to experience an album as a whole instead of it torn into pieces by playlists. I missed giving it my undivided attention and focusing on the artistry of the music and visuals, instead of just putting it on as something to help me pass the time. Especially as a musician myself, I was not feeling as inspired by other musicians like I used to be. So I decided that the best way to recapture that experience would be to replicate it again, and that has lead me back into the world of collecting vinyl records.
Last night i went to a record store. It felt good to go in and flip through albums. I once again felt the excitement of flipping through them and finding a gem that was on my want list or finding one that wasn’t on my list but looked like something I would dig. It kind of felt new to me again, like I was discovering something new, or re-discovering something long lost to me. And what was even cooler was the fact that Vinyl has made a comeback in the time I was away so a lot of the recent music I love is also now pressed on high quality, audiophile vinyl, and with the right turntable setup at home, I can get a sound and fidelity superior to that of CD, and FAR superior to that of digital mp3. So i was once again faced with something I hadn’t had to deal with in a long time. Where do i draw the line. Should i get this one or that one? Which ones will really be worth my money when i have to walk up to a register and fork it over, not just pressing a key and an invisible transaction happens.
Finding so many classic and future classic albums was alot of fun, and figuring out which to get and which to wait on was once again painful. I’m excited to get my new turntable set up as well and will go downstairs and pull my old dusty records out that have been hidden away for so long. I’m taking my music listening experience back, and I’m glad there are enough people out there like me to warrant a niche market big enough for record labels to still press records. So to my dear iPod, iTunes and computer, i love you, but I think we need to take some time away from each other occasionally, like when I don’t want to have Pink Floyd shuffling with Pink! or Motorhead shuffling with Mariah Carey.
