You could say I have quite a record collection. I mean real records, 7″ and 12″ pieces of vinyl that require cleaning before you play them, and perhaps a “dust bug” to clean off excess dust as the record spins. Some people take their record cleaning very seriously even today. I have all the Beatles’ albums on vinyl, a lot of eighties rubbish, and a few records I’ve picked up in jumble sales, boot sales, and even in stores sometimes.
The thing is, with CDs and MP3s now, it’s hard to find the time to put a record on, and the thought of having to flip sides over and/or change record once every 20 minutes seems such hard work – even though I enjoyed this so much before as part of the music listening experience. Making it even more unlikely that I’ll listen to records, my player now lives in the garage, and is only kept in case I ever feel inspired enough to transfer more of my precious vinyl onto CD. I already digitised “Rubber Soul” and “Revolver” but it took a long time, since I cleaned all the pops and clicks afterwards. I probably don’t even have a good enough turntable and initial record cleaning method any more. But I should do the “White Album” sometime, the sound is so different compared to the CDs which were remastered before transfer. Maybe it’s because the sound is slightly duff and it makes me nostalgic.
If you’re completely nuts, you could take things really far, and shell out over $10,000 for a laser turntable. It reads your records with light, so cannot make them any worse than they already are. It may even make them sound perfect. Beware though, as I surfed a little more I stumbled upon this ex-supplier of laser turntables and I now feel a lot better about my digital transfer of old LPs to CD format with a regular diamond stylus.
How about a Saw Doctors lyric (The Music I Love) to finish :
The day of the vinyl long player is gone
It’s all cassettes and CDs from now on
In this world of my own I can travel afar
I don’t need a bus, plane a bike or a carI’ll just sit in my room with all the lights off
My mother and father think I’m gone daft
I stay home with the music I love
I stay home with you
29/9/2005 at 2:11 am
Oh, yeah, you got it, fruey. My husband had all the Beatle albums until someone ripped them off. The White Album… hoo-boy, classic. I absolutely waited on the edge of my seat for John Lesson to say, “I got blisters on my fingers!” Thanks for that memory.
29/9/2005 at 9:00 am
You’re welcome Paula, thanks for stopping by. I loved listening to Beatles album tracks, picking a couple from one side and then flipping the record and trying to make sure the needle dropped in just the right place on the other side for my next favourite track. I made mix tapes where I tried to get everything mixed together perfectly – timing on the pause button was tough, as mine was a proper mechanical pause with a spring loaded mechanism. Sometimes the tape would go “worrrw” in between tracks :-D.