After a trip to my local music/video store, I emerged with a couple of my favorite albums of all time, Aim and Ignite by Fun. and Vampire Weekend’sHorchata, which is currently playing.
Eras
As a 17 year old, Vinyl is new and old to me. I can barely remember the tape cassette era, when you had to rewind and flip tapes to find the spot you were looking for. Or how sometimes the tape would get all screwy and you’d have to use a pencil to fix it. The good old days? Maybe.
Then came the CD era. I remember a few kids on my bus would bring their CD players with them to listen to their mix of 12 songs on some cheap headphones. But hey, whatever works. CDs were pretty great, because they were relatively portable, and were super easy to burn music to.
The intangible MP3
Right now, I’ve got a little over 750 songs in my Spotify collection. I hardly own any music right now. I’m 17, remember? What I love about Spotify is that I can find out about a song, album, or artists, and listen to it on the spot. Likewise, the music quality is relatively good. I honestly can’t tell the difference between CD and streaming quality. Anyone who claims they can is probably lying…
But, I’d say that given the oppurtunity, I would take a vinyl album over the iTunes version. There’s something to said about how much more special a physical vinyl album is to me than just the songs in my Spotify collection.
A real vinyl album has heft, it is breakable. I can see the album art at a scale that can’t be achieved on my computer. Seeing the album art is so much cooler when you can physically see it. Trust me.
But that’s not all. A vinyl record is a complete, physical, standalone product. It has a back to it with the list of songs and on what side they will be played on. And inside, the aritsts typically include not only a complete list of lyrics, but also extra artwork that I would have never seen had I only seen the album online. Maybe this excites me simply because I love graphic design and typography. But I just think it’s awesome to see the extras that I get by buying the vinyl version. The tangibility that vinyl boasts of has not been replaced by anything that digital music offers.
A trip to the record store > iTunes
In Spotify, all I had to do was press a button to save an entire album. Done. But going to the record store is quite different. I went to Waterloo Records yesterday. I was my first time ever going to a record store, and I was impressed not only by the size of the store, but also the selection. To be quite honest, I was expecting a small hole in the wall type of store, but what I got was entirely different. If you’re in the Austin area, do yourself a favor and visit that store.
Being an amateur music junkie (I’ve yet to reach full junkie), I was so excited to simply peruse the rows and shelfs of vinyl records. Whether I was looking for my favorites or simply looking at the album art, I loved being able to leaf through the album dividers and finally find the artist I was looking for. I even found some music I never expected Waterloo to carry.
Dropping the needle
Simply playing your favorite music is so much different when I use vinyl. I’m not just pressing a part of my phone’s touch screen. I have to take out the disc, find which side I want to play, and where I want to start. Then you drop the needle.
Perhaps one of the most important things about using vinyl is that in order to skip a track, a whole lot more effort is required. Typically, I skip a lot of songs even if they’re in my library. When I’m using vinyl, skipping requires walking over to my record player, lifting the needle, and changing its position. If I’m unlucky, I’d even have to flip the disc.
Vinyl encourages listeners to take in the full album, in the way that the artist orginally designed it. There is no shuffle button. I listen to full songs now, start to finish. I can see exactly where I am because of the needle’s position on the disc. When looking for the next album to play, there is no search function, I have to make a decision, and there isn’t a shuffle button that will make that decision for me.
How we can make digital better
Let me just point out that I’m not switching over to vinyl completely. Spotify and similar services are much cheaper, much more portable, and have a better selection. While vinyl does have some really nice features, I simply couldn’t switch over completely. I do think, however, that we can make digital music better.
I think that there’s so much room for improvement in the digital music space, but I’m starting to see companies begin to make a difference. I would love to see more group discussion on a per album basis. Rdio has already added comments for albums, and it would be nice to see it with Spotify. I’m not just talking about reviews either. This area could be a place to find out more about the artist, discuss lyrics, and suggest other albums. In this hub, I could see music videos by the artist, various playlists made by the artist, and their recent posts and updates.
I think that having a stronger connection to the artist or album makes you like the music even more. That’s why I love going to concerts. I never would have liked Vampire Weekend as much as I do now had I not seen them at ACL Festival 2013.
Maybe the existing giants like Spotify and Rdio will add these features, but maybe it’ll take another startup to bridge the digital gap. Time will tell.
