Vinylsaurus

When I tell people I have a record player in my room I get weird looks. I get even weirder ones when I tell the same people that I actually enjoy listening to it. As I am writing now, I am listening to REO Speedwagon's 1980 album, "Hi-Infidelity". I will probably have to get up to turn it over in a few minutes. I can't skip tracks with out the intense, scratch-related agony. I also can't jump up and down, unless I want to hear the chorus one more time. As a matter of fact, record players like mine have been an extinct technology in America for at least fifteen years now.

I think of myself as a trend-setter of sorts. Three or four years from now, records will be making a come-back. It's kind of like dinosaurs. Ten thousand years ago, dinosaurs were the lowest of the low. They just faded away. But today, they are the height of cool. If anyone had a pet triceratops, they would be the rage of the neighborhood. All the kids would be my best friend if I had a stegosaurus. And so it shall be with records. Somebody will finally say, "Oh my god, is that a phonograph? – I love it!" And I will be the savior of the vinyl.

I'll admit, it has its cons, which are corrected by CDs. But still, it's the pros that keep me coming back. No mp3, whatever the quality of the speakers, can match the raw sound quality of vinyl. It is clear and un-processed. It is real. It's the voice of singer that has never even heard of a PC. Listening to records has also increased my enjoyment of the work in its entirety. With CDs or mp3s, one is apt to skip over certain tracks, something simply impossible with a phonograph. It is quicker and easier to just keep listening. And eventually every track will grow on you, and you will appreciate the album for what it truly is.

So I had to get up to flip over "Hi-Infidelity" after the second paragraph. And just now after the third I took off REO Speedwagon and put on Men at Work's "Business as Usual". It brings me such joy to drop the needle onto the record and hear the crackle fade into the music. Don't get me wrong, I still use mp3's, but I look forward to the time when people start excavating their parents' vinyl. That will be the day.