records
I've always enjoyed music.
When I was younger I played drums in a couple of bands and had a record collection stretching to about 200 albums.
Saturday mornings would invariably be spent in a record store poring over the latest releases and wondering what to add to my collection. I rarely left the store without something in a 12" square record bag. Hours would be spent flicking through the records - I'm surprised I haven't got repetitive strain injury!
I also had a quite sophisticated hi-fi system: turntable, amplifier, speakers all carefully chosen and matched to offer the best sound quality I could afford on my budget.
Then while meandering around the city centre you'd wonder what records other people had in their bags. What had they bought? What would they be listening to later on or that evening. You could try to guess from their attire: were they a rock fan, pop fan, disco, punk or new romantic (these were quite easy to pick out).
When things moved onto CD things changed as the small cases would often be hidden in larger carrier bags so the guessing games came to a stop.
Now things are completely different.
I just bought some music. Three albums to be precise without leaving my house. I downloaded them - the whole process took less than 3 minutes. No thumbing through album covers or CD jewel cases - the choice being made using my computer.
All my music is now stored on my iMac and backed up in some cloud somewhere.
But sales of vinyl recordings are making a slow come back. Not amongst the young who don't even buy their music these days, they stream it instead. Sometimes they even pay for it. But by your more mature aficionado
The irony is though that when CD replaced vinyl, a CD cost 3 times as much. Now it appears to be the other way around, with vinyl commanding a premium. The reason for this? It's not just a record you're buying, the guessing game is back. You're getting two things for the price of one.
When I was younger I played drums in a couple of bands and had a record collection stretching to about 200 albums.
Saturday mornings would invariably be spent in a record store poring over the latest releases and wondering what to add to my collection. I rarely left the store without something in a 12" square record bag. Hours would be spent flicking through the records - I'm surprised I haven't got repetitive strain injury!
I also had a quite sophisticated hi-fi system: turntable, amplifier, speakers all carefully chosen and matched to offer the best sound quality I could afford on my budget.
Then while meandering around the city centre you'd wonder what records other people had in their bags. What had they bought? What would they be listening to later on or that evening. You could try to guess from their attire: were they a rock fan, pop fan, disco, punk or new romantic (these were quite easy to pick out).
When things moved onto CD things changed as the small cases would often be hidden in larger carrier bags so the guessing games came to a stop.
Now things are completely different.
I just bought some music. Three albums to be precise without leaving my house. I downloaded them - the whole process took less than 3 minutes. No thumbing through album covers or CD jewel cases - the choice being made using my computer.
All my music is now stored on my iMac and backed up in some cloud somewhere.
But sales of vinyl recordings are making a slow come back. Not amongst the young who don't even buy their music these days, they stream it instead. Sometimes they even pay for it. But by your more mature aficionado
The irony is though that when CD replaced vinyl, a CD cost 3 times as much. Now it appears to be the other way around, with vinyl commanding a premium. The reason for this? It's not just a record you're buying, the guessing game is back. You're getting two things for the price of one.
But you didn't even mention the 45's! The entire wall of the store was divided into little cubbies. Each held a stack of the latest singles. I remember looking through them all and trying to decide which ones I could afford to buy with my paltry allowance! Such excruciating decisions!
ReplyDeleteI've still got my old stereo system from the early 80's set up in the garage. The old Sansui record deck is still there as well but not hooked up as I no longer have any vinyl. Back in the day it was an expensive set-up at well over £600......a lot of money 30 years ago.......a lot of money today come to that!!!!
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