When I was growing up, I lugged around a giant Walkman, and a huge case for all my CD's. It went every where with me. To and from school, any where I traveled too, to sports. My music was right there by my side. CD's transformed to MP3's, my CDs wound up in my basement, as ancient artifacts of my youth. Down there, next to the bin of vinyl my dad has kept his entire life. Those records, I would flip through from time to time, look at the album art, and put them back. It became routine to stop and look through them when I would pass the wooden bins they were housed in. I didn't know to much about them, but I loved the way they looked, until I had one played for me for the first time, and I fell in love with the sound, and the feel of them. Only the "vinyl heads" know what I'm talking about. How can you feel a record? Well I will tell you, that you can, from this special distortion. Its a fat, round feeling, its warm, and sprinkled with crackles. Its a nostalgic feeling, that no other recording can pick up, or replicate. Its a sound thats really hard to replace. A sound thats got a real feeling attached to it. A feeling that not many people my age can relate too.
In the world we live in now, the digital and convenience era, iTunes dominating music sales, and internet radio stations like Pandora, and Spotify it seems like with the surge of vinyl is making a unlikely and significant come back, for those who really put it by the wayside. Almost like taking a step back in time for most. In 2014 record sales grew by more than 50%, the highest since 1996, and the upward curve has continued to grow into 2016.This so called come back is catching everyone's attention, that even NBC news wrote on it. As well as music artists now are trying to jump on this trend train, by releasing their albums on vinyl, or special LP's.
My "cool" uncle, was my outlet for all the cool things and niches I would fall into. He also is an owner of his own record shop located in Downtown Annapolis (Maryland.) What started as an online Ebay shop, opened to be a real store in the heart of Maryland Avenue. Waving distance from ole governor Hogan. He was one of those who never lost faith in the format. A conductor of Record Store Day, a holiday among those who love vinyl. An event that was created in 2007 by independent record stores in the US . The soul purpose is to really celebrate music, retail and the passion behind it all. It is a day that even some artists will put out exclusive special CD's and vinyl just for that day.I had a chance to talk to my uncle, my vinyl guru what his thoughts were on this topic. I asked him how does he describe the feeling of listening to a record, and his answer summed it up perfectly. " Its a unique experience because you become more invested in the music when you're pulling the record out of the sleeve and carefully putting the record on the platter and slowly putting the needle down on the surface of the record. You're an active participate rather than suing music as a sort of audio wallpaper. It goes beyond the fact that records sound better than MPs's and CD's. Its a visceral and tactile analog experience that hits you in a way that CD's and MP3's don't. It goes to the nature of a physical artistic product. This thought existing in someones head and they used music as a means of interpreting their emotions and ideas and they sculpted a physical manifestation of that thought inside their head, and now its there in your hands." 
This excitement I think is that people like to feel, it. Having their music in their hands. The physicality of it all. Almost why people consider real books to a kindle. Having it in your hand, right there in front of you makes the experience whole, and the most satisfying.Whether this is a trend to stay, or something that will fall back to a niche. Vinyl is one of the most full body versions of music we have to date. I think that if you haven't taken the time, to experience music on vinyl, you really should. I'm talking to the younger generation. Those of you with you faces stuck in your cell phone, downloading music from iTunes. Take a step back, into time if you will, and enjoy something new. It might change the way you see the world of music, where its come from, and far its changed. Whether for better, or for worse. When I asked my uncle about his customer range in his store, he was really surprised about the variety of customers he had. That it really is a good mix of people who really enjoy this long lasting form of music. His youngest customer is a 9 year old who comes in and picks out a new blues or jazz album. The older generations who had never stopped collecting, and the young who are maybe taking a chance to experience something that is magical. My uncle explained how much he enjoys his variety of customers, "I like the fact that younger kids are coming in too because in general they aren't wearing any sort of nostalgia goggles, they re coming in and buying records because they legitimately enjoy it." His earliest memory of a record he would listen too was the Star Wars soundtrack, Michael Jackson Thriller and a series of storybook 45's from the movie the Gremlins, where you would read along with the book while you listened to the story.
"Physical products graft your memory in a way that's impossible with an MP3's. No one in the world has any interesting story about the day they downloaded whatever MP3's in their collection. There's just a cultural and personal richness to vinyl you cant get with anything else."
Vinyl is a special kind of magic, that everyone should experience at least once.
