I <3 vinyl.
So I finally brought my record player and albums from my parents' house to Madison a couple weeks ago. I had forgotten just how much I adore records. I love the feel of them, I love the smell of them, I love the sound the needle makes when you set it down, I even love the sound they make when they skip. And the sound just sounds more... real, somehow, I don't know. I used to be a pretty avid collector of records for a couple years, and between my parents' old ones and ones I've bought I have a fair amount of cool shit. But I'd forgotten what exactly I had. And since 19-year-old-Erica and 23-year-old-Erica really don't have that different taste in music, I kept finding stuff that I had that I thought was really, really awesome. It's like the feeling you get when you meet someone who you think has awesome taste in music, but times 100, because it was the exact same taste in music, plus I get to own all of these records. If that makes sense.
I also think it's kind of cute to see which albums I have doubles of, because it means that my parents both independently bought an album before they met each other and they ended up with two copies when they combined their record libraries. (They both liked Joni Mitchell and Cat Stevens.) It's one of those little jarring things where you realize that your parents are real people and that they had real lives before you came along. It also reminds me that even though their relationship now makes me a little sad for the future, they really did love each other at one point. I can imagine them listening to Tea for the Tillerman together on the turntable and big-ass-speakers setup that my dad used to have. In the tiny little shack they lived in in the woods. It's a happy thought.
I think another reason I really like records is because my family never really did cassettes, except for cars, I guess. We listened to records right up until we got a CD-player, at which time all the records went away until I rediscovered them at 16. And I still have all of the records that I listened to as a kid-- my favorites were Peter and the Wolf and Where the Sidewalk Ends, read aloud by Shel Silverstein. And there are probably some Sesame Street ones if I look hard enough back at my parents', but I might have just borrowed those from the library all the time (and it's so weird to think that libraries actually had records within my remembered lifetime).
Also, did anyone know that Amazon.com has a vinyl store? I just found this out, and I am super excited. I am totally going to buy a whole bunch more records and continue to geek out about them like a good little pretentious music nerd. ::flails excitedly::
I also think it's kind of cute to see which albums I have doubles of, because it means that my parents both independently bought an album before they met each other and they ended up with two copies when they combined their record libraries. (They both liked Joni Mitchell and Cat Stevens.) It's one of those little jarring things where you realize that your parents are real people and that they had real lives before you came along. It also reminds me that even though their relationship now makes me a little sad for the future, they really did love each other at one point. I can imagine them listening to Tea for the Tillerman together on the turntable and big-ass-speakers setup that my dad used to have. In the tiny little shack they lived in in the woods. It's a happy thought.
I think another reason I really like records is because my family never really did cassettes, except for cars, I guess. We listened to records right up until we got a CD-player, at which time all the records went away until I rediscovered them at 16. And I still have all of the records that I listened to as a kid-- my favorites were Peter and the Wolf and Where the Sidewalk Ends, read aloud by Shel Silverstein. And there are probably some Sesame Street ones if I look hard enough back at my parents', but I might have just borrowed those from the library all the time (and it's so weird to think that libraries actually had records within my remembered lifetime).
Also, did anyone know that Amazon.com has a vinyl store? I just found this out, and I am super excited. I am totally going to buy a whole bunch more records and continue to geek out about them like a good little pretentious music nerd. ::flails excitedly::