Music Was Inconvenient
Scratchy Wax: Part 1 of my journey from physical music to digital to streaming
It is so amazing to me how much the process of music consumption has changed over my lifetime, and how quickly it continues to evolve. When I was young, there was (AM) radio of course, and that was my primary exposure to the art form. But back in those days, before even FM radio really, and the less restrictive nature of that format, I was stuck with stations playing just the hits and was not able to listen to anything on demand that way. It was so different from today’s much superior landscape.
In order to listen to what I wanted to, when I wanted to, I had to get a vinyl 33 1/3 RPM album (or 45 RPM¹ single) and play it on my father’s huge cabinet stereo system. It somewhat baffles me that the vinyl album has made such a huge comeback in the last decade or so, when there are so many other choices. Back in those days, I didn’t have a choice. And if I had, it probably wouldn’t have been to deal with a tiny needle, pops & hiss & scratches & inner groove distortion, and a large platter that had to be turned over after 20 minutes. But that’s likely a topic for another time — I may mock the vinyl renaissance but a part of me is glad that people are appreciating that medium now, and that artists and record companies are releasing so much new music this way. (Note that vinyl sales have surpassed CD sales the last few years.) And it does force one to actually focus on listening to the album and appreciating the album artwork, instead of just having something on in the background. It’s just not for me these days.
My dad’s playback system was a record player² inside the center of a cabinet that had two speakers on either side of it. You had to open a lid on the top surface of the cabinet to get to the player, and of course you couldn’t put anything on top of the unit. There was also a radio next to the player. Albums could be stored under the player/radio. This is the sort of thing I’m talking about.
My dad liked music generally, but it wasn’t a huge part of his life. From what I recall, my mother didn’t have much interest in music, though my older sister remembers my mom singing pop songs of my mom’s day to her. What always fascinated me about my dad’s tastes was that he was primarily into Big Band music (Glenn Miller Orchestra etc), and the only “contemporary” band he listened to was Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. This was in the late 60s, so my dad would’ve been about 40. His tastes were very similar to those of his father, my grandfather, which was kind of weird to me.
I believe the first album I ever owned was the soundtrack to the 60s Batman TV show. I’m sure my parents gifted it to me at some point because I was so into the show. It wasn’t all that musical — most of it was dialogue from the show chopped up & repurposed, and playing over some interesting musical beds. Now that I think about it, maybe it was ahead of its time a bit. I’m not sure I would be able to go back and listen to that these days aside from nostalgic curiosity, though I sure played it a lot back then, much to the annoyance of my parents and sisters.
Other than that, I don’t remember owning or listening to any other albums in the 60s, besides playing my dad’s Herb Alpert records, which I grew to enjoy. I don’t even remember having many singles. There may have been some other TV show and movie tie-in records in my collection, and possible a comedy album or two. We must’ve been a very soundtrack-oriented family. I remember my oldest sister playing Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar a lot, and my younger sister being way too into Mary Poppins, Sound of Music and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Instead of having to use my dad’s big cabinet system, my sisters had small record players, with a single attached speaker, in their bedrooms, whereas I don’t think I ever did. I ended up going a different way, which radically changed how I listened to and appreciated music.
Next: Unruly Spools
¹ “Too much revolution then” (a callout to my BÖC fan brethren).
² Some pedantry here on record player vs turntable: A record player is an all-in-one unit (including amplifier and speaker), whereas a turntable requires other components added on to play music.
