Yesterday, I was making my weekly trip to Goodwill (yes, I really like that place), and even though I went to look for organizers for my college apartment, I ended up in the back where they keep all the vinyl. As I am searching through their collection, a lady who seems to be in her late 40’s comes over. “You know darling, these need a record player… you can’t just play them on your iPhones!” she laughed.
a number of times I have heard comments starting with “You probably don’t know what vinyl are, but when I was young…” is uncountable. However, this lady just really went a bit far. First of all, I don’t own an iPhone. Second of all, I have a record player. Lastly, I’m sure that my love for old music beats hers. Moving in and out of college is always a pain, but the first thing to be packed and unpacked will always be the record player along with all of the vinyl.
There are many old bands that I have never heard of, and I continue to hear new old artists every day. As a kid, I heard the sound of records from neighbors, friends, and at music stores, but it was not until my first year of college that my best friend gave me a record player for Christmas. He knew I had been wanting one for the longest time, and along with that, I got my first Billy Joel vinyl. For the last two years, I have been able to actually buy the albums that I had seen at many stores and flea markets. I know that vinyl are much more expensive that hearing the song on Spotify or Pandora, but when I first heard the sound of a Mumford & Sons album on a record player, I realized that the feeling you get is completely different. It feels livelier with a tighter bass, and the best part is that I am forced to listen to a whole album. In an age of ‘singles’ and playlists, I enjoy hearing the whole album. Many older artists have placed their songs in a particular order on the record; moreover, some vinyl can tell a full story, but in order to hear the intended words of a musician, you must first hear the whole album.
Vinyl records are always somewhere south of perfection. There are many small details that go into making a record- mastering, cutting, pressing, etc- so there is endless room for error. Which makes a well-pressed record a thing of beauty to see and hear. Another key difference I learned as a child is the way albums are mastered for vinyl versus digital (most of the time). Digital has a hard stop at 0db but vinyl is an organic matter and there is no hard stop. So this leads to an artistic struggle between the dynamic aspect of the music and the physical limitations of the vinyl; consequently, vinyl is more dynamic (most of the time) than digital, which means less fatigue and more emotion in the music.
This leads me to my favorite reason of why I listen to the sounds of vinyl: the experience. Listening to vinyl can be quite an immersive experience. I get home, put the record on, sit down, and either completely focus on the music, read a book, or make note cards for class. There are no jumping tracks because that is not only a pain to do, but it can scratch the vinyl itself. Honestly, the limitations of using a record player relax me. Once I start the vinyl and sit down, there is no touching it… it is just my music and I. (To be fair, record shopping is much cheaper than getting myself a psychiatrist!)
To the lady at Goodwill and to many of the people that have or will one day look at me and think I don’t know how to love vinyl, you are very very very wrong. One day, I hope that I am able to buy more vinyl for my collection. In addition, I hope to buy an even nicer record player for myself in the future, but for now, the music of the Beatles, Led Zepplin, Sublime, and The Doors all sound much better with the magic of vinyl playing in my living room.
