I have owned a handful of vinyl LPs for several years, mainly for the purpose of framing and displaying the cover sleeves on my walls - even though I had no record player. Hey, the LP cover wall art looked pretty spiffy, so don't laugh. There is also a small bunch of 7" singles that I've kept from my childhood and teen years... stuff like The Monkees, Stevie Wonder, BeeGee's, Alice Cooper, Paul McCartney, Captain and Tennille (yes!) and some Rush. A few collectible promo discs in there, too. So I've got over a dozen LPs (including a couple I recently picked up) and about the same number of 45's to keep me busy for a while. And I'll keep my eyes peeled for yard and garage sales for cheap acquisitions.
On the one hand, I wonder what the hell records I'd even buy now... I mean, I already own pretty much all my favourite music on CD. And I've already been the record route back in the 70's, then sold those off and "upgraded" (more like downgraded) to cassette tapes (simply smaller and easier to tote when moving from city to city) in the 80's, dipped my toe in the 8-track tape waters but didn't take the full plunge, and then re-bought a lot of those same albums yet again on CD. While CD's usually offered pristine sound and a highly reliable playback system, I often found there was something lacking. It wasn't always easy to put my finger on it, but it felt like a warm tone or a true "room presence" (if that makes any sense) was sacrificed for the sake of sonic clarity. For some musical artists, this didn't make a stitch of difference. Did Motorhead songs really lose much in the new medium? Or Metallica? See what I mean?
Guys like Sting and Peter Gabriel embraced the CD medium so they could produce hour-plus albums of jazzy-pop-world music that sounded like the ultimate listening experience. Hey, I was blown away when I first heard Sting's Dream of the Blue Turtles CD. That was an early reference point for the pro-digital camp. But now it leaves me kinda cold.
It looks like I've come full circle, back to the vinyl I used to cherish decades ago. As a teenager, I'd huddle in my basement bedroom with my low-end all-in-one (radio, amp and turntable) system, a gift from my aunt, with the little plastic speakers bouncing off the floor as I cajoled the tone arm to stay in place on my copy of Black Sabbath's Heaven and Hell record. At least now I've got a significantly better stereo setup with my Sony turntable and CD player, Technics receiver, and JBL speakers. Simple yet effective.
And while it was initially a dream-come-true when digital downloads of every song in the world became reality, it didn't take long for me to detect the flaws in MP3s... the lower sound quality (especially compared with CD's), the often muddy and choppy audio blurriness. I again craved higher resolution sound, occasionally locating WAV and FLAC files that came closer to the real thing... but not quite. All of these lack the frequency range of factory-pressed records and CD's.
My nearly 1000 CDs seem a bit meaningless to me sometimes, and I ponder selling off (or giving away, since hardly anyone bothers with them anymore, what with the easy access to digital streaming music via Spotify and its brethren) a bunch of them. I mean, I haven't even looked at, let alone played, my jazz, classical, Motown - or rap - CDs in years. Even electronic music and movie soundtracks have taken a back seat. I've sort of settled myself into a comfortable groove (note the record metaphor there) drifting between hard rock/metal and a bit of dance-pop. A curious combination, you might say, but it works for me. Actually, for a few months now, it's only been rock and metal.
A couple of years ago, I treated myself to some audiophile Sennheiser headphones for Christmas. Best gift ever. Best purchase ever. Best investment ever. I actually prefer to listen with my beloved Senns over my still rockin' JBL speakers. The up-close-and-personal feel of headphones... the intimacy of the experience... that makes a huge difference in my listening sessions. And even my "crappy" early CD issues of Rush's A Farewell to Kings and Supertramp's Crime of the Century burst with new life as they play through my Sennheiser eargoggles.
And yet... well, here I am. Records on my mind. All the time. I doubt I will collect vinyl as fervently as I did tapes and CDs when those were relevant. Though I gave my tapes (all but a few for the time capsule) the heave-ho about a year ago, I still have mountains of CDs filling my living room shelves. A bit of a burden, yes, and yet I know I'd only regret it if I let them go. There are certainly some dear ones, some rare-ish ones that I'll never part with.
I see myself picking up some old favourite albums on vinyl simply to enjoy that more tactile and interactive experience. I already have a few favourites like the aforementioned Crime of the Century, Van Halen's 1984, Cheap Trick's first album, Beatles' Rubber Soul, Best of ZZ Top (1977), and a few James Bond movie soundtracks from the 1960's. I also have on order an old but highly playable copy of Sabbath's Heaven and Hell... so I can re-live those teen years with what is perhaps my fave album of all time. That might do for a while. Until I find a yard sale with bins full of $2 records. Then all bets are off.
I'm looking forward to this brave new world of old-school vinyl records. And who knows, maybe this'll be the nudge for me to cast off a bunch of those pesky little plastic discs full of corruptible data (CD data can deteriorate over time, apparently). Vinyl records, on the other hand, when cared for, can last pretty much forever. Consider the collectible Sinatra and Elvis from the mid-1900's. It's still out there.
Now... time for a needle drop.
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