[ music provided by Roof Light. You should listen to the mixtape below while reading. ]
‘Looking At The Light Through The Pouring Rain’ Mix for BLBX by Roof Light
If you’ve spent time walking the aisles of your local record store, you probably have experienced the sense of discovery that comes from picking up a record you’ve never seen before, placing it on a turntable and hearing some kind of magic pour out that you thought impossible. No matter what genre of music you’re into, these days many of your favorite artists are releasing their records on vinyl & offering companion digital downloads for your purchase. The experience of music discovery these days, for most people, is via social networking and internet services which purport to act as filters for listeners — everything from Twitter and Facebook links to Pandora, Soundcloud, Elbows, Hype Machine, Shuffler and the like. Maybe you read music blogs like mine & download MP3′s or maybe you find yourself attaching to a lifestyle site like Complex Magazine or The FADER or (if you’re particularly savvy) you tune into internet radio stations like KEXP, KCRW, WEVL or East Village Radio. These are all great ways of learning about new music, but none of them compare to the experience of purchasing and hearing an album on vinyl from beginning to end.
From the time I was really little, I started collecting records. I have always loved the feel of vinyl in my hands, the smell of the record as the plastic was cracked & the record removed from its sleeve for the first time. Pulling a record out and placing it on a turntable, the sound of the needle as it hits the first groove, the warmth as the first notes come through the speaker — these are only things you can understand and experience if you purchase vinyl records.
In a world that is moving so quickly, where there is so little time to slow down and appreciate any one thing for any length of time before moving onto the next, vinyl records require an effort. They require an effort on the part of the creative people who put them together, to package them in an artistically pleasing way that delivers a message about the music you’re about to hear. Vinyl requires an effort on the part of the listener, a willingness to allow their discomfort of getting up to flip the record over to not interfere with the joy of listening.
Roof Light – IntroRetrospective
::: Crossing Generations :::
Like many of you reading this, I am part of the generation in which 8-tracks and reel-to-reel came and went & cassettes and CD’s became the medium of choice for transporting music to listeners. I amassed enormous collections of both cassettes and CD’s, none of which I still have (save those which people have sent to me over the years), but I never lost my affection for vinyl. Yes, to the average person, a vinyl record represents an antiquated method of listening to music and a bygone era. But what we’ve learned, both in terms of sales and artistic cache, is that vinyl’s resurgence represents both a desire to find new ways of supporting musicians & a feeling of connectivity to our shared past.
The big fear has been, for some time, that this shared experience of listening to vinyl records or going to record stores would disappear due to technology. People who chose to shepherd the cause of keeping vinyl alive have been met, in many instances, with the same arguments made about people as they age — vinyl is ‘a burden’ and simply ‘in the way’. But vinyl advocates feel the opposite to be true and, counting myself among them, treat vinyl records as what they really are and always were — affordable pieces of art that individuals can own & share. They represent rarity & collectability, something to satisfy the hunter and collector in each of us.
People frequently have some story to be told of the time a particular record was purchased that is lost in the digital experience. I can so clearly remember the day, the situation, who I was with and how I felt when I bought certain records. Rather than a burden, it is a hallmark of what is most beautiful about the form of expression behind the work — the liner notes, the colored vinyl, the label, the photographs and inserts. It is a point of pride, something I can show off to guests and talk about with the affection that it deserves.
I believe there is some part of each of us who listen to & purchase vinyl records that feels a connection to our parents and our grandparents, to the advances in technology that they experienced and saw first-hand. Perhaps it was a stack of 45′s that were placed on top of each other on the changer as they studied, read, wrote in their diaries or just daydreamed. Perhaps your grandmother learned how to do the twist or your mom & dad made out for the first time to a record they eventually passed down to you. Maybe it was hearing the Archies sing “Sugar Sugar” as they watched a man land on the moon for the first time, or listening to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon in their headphones against a stoned, lazy afternoon. The shared memories and experiences are a way of bridging the conversations between generations. I think some part of each of us wants to know the beauty of those experiences, to be able to share them with our children and grandchildren.
::: To The Future :::
With hundreds of local record stores to choose from, Record Store Day represents an opportunity not simply to relive the record shopping days of the past but to provide a future for the record shopping experience & discovery of generations of music fans yet to come. Parents and children shopping together for new records, you and the one you love pouring over stacks or, perhaps, a group of friends getting together to celebrate these limited edition releases from bands that they love is a way of generating the shared music experience in the real world, in a much more beautiful and tactile way than the internet.
Or maybe, like me, you feel like you’re the only one who truly understands what records mean and you love to peruse the shelves on your own. But even then, you share something with record store employees and purveyors around the globe. Shopping for records is something which requires a special kind of music fan. It demands a type of unsullied social interaction and a willingness to support the dedication behind the artful forces of music.
Now that the digital age is in full swing unlikely to be turning backwards, the warmth and depth of vinyl records has, more than ever, become an experience for one to have rather than a description one can write. For true music fans, vinyl records are one of the best ways of connecting to the artists we revere, to support local businesses, and to bridge the generation gap between friends and families in a symbolic gesture of artistic goodwill.
Record Store Day 2011 will happen tomorrow, Saturday, April 16th. Loudersoft urges you to support your local record retailer tomorrow and every day.
[ A List of Special Releases for Record Store Day 2011 (PDF) ]
The post [Record Store Day 2011] The Importance of Vinyl Records. appeared first on Loudersoft.
