Vinyl. It’s the stuff of my childhood as I first began to discover music. In a time before streaming and hearing every song on an album before purchasing it, there was a moment, when I dropped the needle on a new record, and the first song started playing through my bedroom record player… the anticipation, the excitement of hearing track 1 for the first time on so many great albums.
The change to CD’s then eventually digital music saw me get rid of all my vinyl, something I have regretted for decades.
I had so much great stuff, the entire catalogue of Iron Maiden albums, some on collectible picture discs. The first releases of all the great albums of my youth, Appetite for Destruction is a particular album I remember, I must have almost worn it out.
As a young musician, I used to play these albums over and over trying to work out guitar parts. The way I see my own children skip over songs now on Spotify or AppleMusic, never really giving things a chance shows me how much of this experience of listening has been lost.
It was a whole production to go to the record store, get the album, get home, and put it on for the first time, I don’t think I ever skipped a track. Why would I, I wouldn’t want to miss something.
As an old man now, I look back on this time through rose coloured glasses and it reminds me of a simpler existence, when music was listened to as the highlight of my day, not as background noise to work, I still listen and discover new things, and the things I like a great deal, I try to find the vinyl.
This weekend you will find me going through boxes of vinyl in Bathurst looking for the lost gems of my youth, and some before my time – the classics – maybe even some more recent releases, but I intend to come home with some new pieces for my slowly growing curated collection of music, that I intend to find time to enjoy like I used to, spinning the black circle, and doing nothing but listening. Life should be so simple.
