The last family to live in my new-to-me apartment left a set of reasonably expensive speakers and a receiver, and a friend picked up a new turntable and gave me his old one. I’ve finally got a way to play records. Emphasis on finally, man; I’ll tell you, I couldn’t wait to play scratchy thirty-year-old dinner plates you have to physically flip over every twenty minutes. The only true positive is also a negative: I simply cannot resist the urge to scratch them like Kid Koala.

Let’s own up to it: vinyl is an inferior medium. You can’t put it in your pocket, can’t play it on the subway, it’s more expensive and less durable. They’re heavy and require lots of storage space. Some say that it sounds better, but frankly I don’t hear it. Still though, you can’t deny there’s something special about it. Sitting around and listening to records is a unique way of appreciating music; there’s something more to it than the throwback value. In a way, you’re appreciating more than just the music. Maybe it’s that the album is still the unit of measurement for an artist’s output: it represents a cohesive quantum of effort within a certain time period, and that demands a certain degree of respect. That, and records are big, big square chunks of music, and the packaging gives the visual parts of your brain something to associate with the sounds.

I actually have a smallish record collection that for years I’ve used as bitchin’ wall decoration (try it, they look fantastic on the wall.) The other day I took a box cutter to the cling wrap and pulled out a disc and enjoyed an album that, despite having had for a couple of years, I had never listened to before. And yeah, it’s not an everyday thing, because nobody has the time or the inclination to enjoy music that way these days, but it was still a pleasure. I went down to the record shop and payed for physical copies of recordings for the first time in years. There’s cheap old stuff and expensive new stuff. Maybe this is the only way left for artists to get folks to shell out for physical recordings: some people will always want records because they still feel special, because they’re a way for people to prove they really care about a particular album or artist. Download the mp3s illegally and buy a vinyl record of the same music, because it’s a twelve-inch road sign that tells your houseguests “WATCH OUT! This guy really likes Stevie Ray Vaughn.”

Here’s some songs ripped straight from vinyl. Listen closely and you can hear those pops and cracks everyone says they love so much. Also, the lead picture is from Sleeveface, which has tons of photos like this one.

Cream – “Strange Brew”
Gentle Giant – “On Reflection”
Prefuse 73 – “Parachute Panador”

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