Recently I bought a little Victrola record player, and now my greatest new hobby is to go around and find old records wherever I can find them. It’s opened a whole new world of music that has been awesome to explore.
The system is really cool because it also comes with a CD player and a cassette deck. It also will run Bluetooth through it as well. It’s really a neat setup.
As I type this, I am listening to an album by Chet Atkins—a guitarist famous for his “chicken-pickin” style from the 1950s. My grandpa loved listening to him. To sit here and listen to a physical piece of media that existed in the same timeframe that my grandfather existed is fucking awesome. The record that I am listening to now … existed in the same year that Papa could have been listening to it. That’s cool.
A few weeks ago, I found a record that was produced by a guy from St. Louis named Gene Lynn. I bought it because the printed label looked like it was an amateur production. Turns out, the guy owned a club in the central west end for over 30 years. He was known regionally as the “black Frank Sinatra,” and has a known history in the STL music scene. That’s way cool.
And the last one I’ll highlight is one that is dear to my heart right now. When I was in high school, I commandeered my dad’s stereo system in the basement, which was an old school hi-if with a turntable and big floor speakers. My dad had an old Deep Purple record that I played every time I worked out. The first record I bought after getting the record player (the record I’m listening to right now), was the same Deep Purple album. Again, it’s cool to have something physical that existed in the same time that he would have been listening to it. That’s the fucking coolest.
And, if nothing else, a digital reproduction can never replace the tactile feel of physical media, especially a vinyl record. We’ve digitized the humanity out of everything that we used to just enjoy, and sometimes it’s nice to just sit back and enjoy the music.
Now don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy letting a stream of music roll through the Bluetooth from Spotify. There is a time when convenience trumps nostalgia. Still, that doesn’t match the joy of letting a record roll for a bit while you let the sounds bounce around inside your head.
Yep, still digging the Deep Purple record … 🙂
Click here to check out the same record player at Amazon.
