Listening to Vinyl

Feb 15

I am of the generation that grew up with CD's. There was still a little trickle of tapes around, but it was primarily CD's until the internet took over. One of my uncles has a record collection and loves sharing music with people. I happen to be one of the few people in our family that really understands and appreciates pretty much any style of music. As far as owning my own records… It always felt like a very superfluous hobby. Records take up a lot of space, they're expensive, the deteriorate after a while, and they aren't that convenient to listen to. All that to say… There's something so special about listening to vinyl. There really is a quality difference. The audio is clearer than compressed listening experiences like Spotify, Apple Music, etc. And… doing something more slowly really makes you appreciate and enjoy the very intentional decision to listen to whatever your choice is.

In my video where I talk about why we have a record collection and player now; I mention that Nicole's dad LOVED records. Which he did. He has a big and very eclectic collection of records. Tons of movie sound tracks, some wilderness sound FX compilations, the rat pack, and bunch of other random stuff. When he passed away, Nicole was really feeling down and I knew a surprise of a record player and a bunch of his records to bring some of that life into our home whenever she needed that pick-me-up was a really good idea. Thus, where our record collection comes from. Now, I really only buy records that I have a strong feeling towards. So, our collection is eclectic in a different way than Bob's. (Nicole's dad) We have things from metal to pop to electronic to classical and jazz. It's really a fun collection to peruse.

Cleaning records was never something I even thought about until I got a record player and realized that if you don't clean off the dirt… you'll ruin your needle. Which is literally the only thing making the music sound as good or bad as you maintain it. There is something quite therapeutic to cleaning the records. When we first got all the records from Bob, they were absolutely disgusting. I don't think he cleaned a single one in the entire 30-60 years he had some of these. So, at first, I spent an entire day cleaning records. Some of which I cleaned more than once. Now, the cleaning process has become more of a "right of passage" of the record into the collection. Depending on how excited I am to hear it… I clean it the moment it comes home. If I'm not, it may sit unopened for as long as it takes me to listen to it.