Vinyl and the journey back to the ritual of listening

Modern technology has made music extraordinarily accessible. Streaming services deliver almost every song you can think of directly to your chosen device. So why would anyone go through the hassle of dealing with physical media...?

A crate of vinyl

For me, it started with simple curiosity. For almost two decades, I carted a crate of records around the country. I didn’t have a turntable...but I had plenty of vinyl at the ready should one appear. When one of my mates spun a black circle for me on his fancy new setup, it started an itch. Remember the hours of joy of spinning those old discs?

Quality control

I bought a cheap turntable and almost immediately found myself tangled in the web of the quality debate. Some crate-diggers swear by the audio quality of vinyl. The analogue purity. The soul! Sadly, my cheap turntable was more of the ‘argh!’ type of soul, but boy, those old records brought back memories. When they played all the way through...without skipping...or stalling...

Hi-fi ways

So I stumped up some cash and got myself a decent turntable. No frills, I actually had to put the belt on myself! So hip. I plugged it into a quality amp and the next-size up shelf speakers and there it was, that old sound. That old vibe. That old...feeling. Ahh, soul!

Green-tinted nostalgia

Digging into that old crate and remembering first listens of hoary old metal bands. Memories of another time. Another me! Why that me bought that many Anthrax EPs is whole other story, but it sure is a blast to crank up their French version of Antisocial.

I was also attracted to the scarcity. The simple pleasure of actually finding obscure albums, rather than streaming them. It can get a bit out of hand, though. I’ve accidentally re-bought additional copies of the albums that maybe aren’t so obscure enough times that I now keep a spreadsheet on my phone. It’s not all about old technology!

The ritual

Nostalgia brought me back but it’s ritual that holds me here. It’s me. I listen to music differently on vinyl. I physically have to select a side. Drag the needle onto the record and deal with the 15 to 20 minutes of music selected by the artist, producers, record company and whoever else. It’s not so easy to skip a song. It forces me to really listen, to hear songs I might not have noticed before. It forces me to commit. It lets me actually get to know a song, not just pass through it as a background to whatever else I’m doing. That’s the pleasure I get from vinyl. Listening.

The $5 bins have also helped me overcome my pretensions about my musical choices. Did you know Glen Campbell actually has some pretty good songs?

But that’s a story for another time...