The Joy of the Vinyl

I'm acutely aware that this blog is called Back to the Vinyl and I haven't really talked about it much.

What I have said is that I bought a record player last year, basically as I had all my Dad's old vinyl that he didn't want to drag all the way to the Welsh border and store somewhere in his country house, and I'd bought two records with nothing to play them on. I did also mention some of the really old stuff I can remember from being very young and pulling them out from the cabinet to look at the pretty colours. In retrospect, I think there is a chance these were some of my fathers less choice cuts from his collection as he was allowing a toddler to pull them out of their sleeves and possibly even play them. Even now as an adult in my 30's, he didn't give up all of his most precious L.P's. All the Jimi Hendrix albums are missing for a start.

However all The Beatles are there that he bought or kept from the joint ownership arrangement he had with his elder brother. As are the Rolling Stones.

As you grow up and begin your own music journey, you are more likely to pick up the current format to purchase your single or album. Now it's the mp3 or download. There was the short lived Mini Disc (I did have a portable player) and for the best part of 30 years there has been the CD. This is where the bulk of my music collection is housed. This is where the teenage me spent all his pocket money, part time job wages and student loan. But before that, when the CD was a luxury, expensive item, my Dad played me vinyl, he bought me vinyl and I would chose old jukebox 7" singles from an ice-cream tub underneath the magazines racks in the corner shop near the park. My brother and I had our own ice-cream tub full of singles without the middle which would have the small hole that you slipped onto the turntable. You had to buy those plastic 3 edged in-fills that would clip into place so you could play them.

Somewhere between the old house and the new (23 years ago NEW) those boxes of 45's were lost, which I am gutted about. I was then too, but now I have an obsession and I would love to have the Apple re-issues of The Beatles singles, I distinctly remember having Hey Jude. Admittedly, even in the late 80's/ early 90's when you could still readily buy the 7" single in Our Price and Woolworths, there were some really shoddy and shameful additions, such as Kylie Minogue's 'Tears on my pillow', which was a particular lowlight. There would still have been some great stuff though. Tears for Fears and Thompson Twins. My Mum is convinced that I had a couple of Smith's singles which is a devastating thought, if true, that I no longer have them. I'm not convinced which is why its not a nagging, painful regret.

Due to the rise in the popularity of the vinyl over the past few years, my interest has awoken. I can't put my finger on the point when the vinyl was relegated into the metaphorical and literal bargain bin and CD sidled into take its place, but there must have been one. We had a big stereo system that had the turntable, radio, double tape deck and CD from an early stage of the CD revolution, but I'm not conscious of a split from records to CD. I was making mix tapes from CD's, Vinyl and even other cassettes for a long time. Well into my teenage years. I think it may well have been the birthday when I received my first CD player. It may have been as late as my 15th, as I did get What's the Story (Morning Glory) on tape for the Christmas the year it came out (1995) when I was 14.

It has just occurred to me, that the reason for the abandoning of the record was the use of the CD in the creation of the mix tape. For all those whose teenage years were the 1980's and the mix tape making from their vinyl was a joyous time, it was also, besides cassettes, your only option. By the time I was making the tapes to go in my Walkman for those long drives to the seaside or the walk or ride to school or town, it was so, so much easier to queue up a track from a CD. A side of vinyl with 5 or 6 tracks was a real pain to drop the needle at the right point to then have the time to press pause to begin recording. Cassettes were even worse. At least you could see the grooves on the record. No, it was just too damn easy to press the next button until you got to the song you wanted, and then release the pause or press record. It became a fine art. A seamless process. The tape would run between songs as if it was made professionally.

It's different now though, isn't it. I don't need to make a mix tape. The teenager in me would still love to, but, as I said about the 80's teenager having no choice but to queue up the middle track on the record, back then, I HAD to make a mix tape because there was no iPod or mp3. Now, there is. Not only that, I can have my cake and eat it by buying a new album on vinyl AND getting the download code with it. I have my record and I get to put it on my iPod for the train to work.

I think that is one of the secrets to its new found success. Over a million vinyl records were sold in the UK last year. Would that many have been sold if you didn't also get the download? I'm not so sure.

You can still buy those old albums from bands that you have the CD for that you have already burnt onto iTunes, so that doesn't matter, but the new releases or the re-release with an extra 30 songs, that's where you need the download.

What you don't want to do though, is come home, make a cup of tea or have a beer, and open your laptop or turn your little box in the corner of your room that is synced with your computer's music library. You want to open the lid, switch it on and hear the pop of the speakers. You want to thumb through the spines of your L.P's, pull one out, feel it your hands, pull the sleeve out, slide the record out, hold it at the edges, place it on the turntable, lift the arm, place the needle carefully on the edge, and listen to it crackle, watch it spin, and feel the anticipation of the music starting. It's magical. It's special. It doesn't sound like an mp3 or a CD. It sounds like stylus on vinyl. The imperfections, the little wobble (not too much, you want to be able to hear the majesty of the song), the tangible thing in your hands. The size, the weight, the artwork, the sleeve, the gatefold.

It makes me glad that it's coming back, that it isn't lost forever. We've reached the pinnacle. There may be a different type of file, but it will still be an invisible thing, that is just some writing on a computer screen.

It seems to me, now, there is more chance of the CD dying than the vinyl record. I know plenty of people packing up their jewel cases and sending them to Music Magpie for a pittance because they don't need it. I couldn't do that to my CD's, maybe some, but not the ones with sentimental value. They are my legacy. They are the timeline of my life, from the first Oasis album to the newest Elbow.

But I've regressed, and now I want the format of my very earliest memories.

The beauty and the magic of the vinyl record.

P.S I've been listening to a few new additions that I was given at Christmas. Nick Drake's "Made to Love Magic", made up of unreleased songs from early and later in his recording career and different versions of songs from the three studio albums, and "Pink Moon", a master piece. I swear it sounds better on vinyl. How it was intended to be listened to.