After weeks of misery trying to repair my old linear tracking record player, looking in vain for a new receiver and speakers that would both be compatible with it, and also fit into my living room, I took the plunge and did what will make most serious audiophiles cringe: I bought one of those Crosley all-in-one turntables. They’re simple, they have character, they’re portable, and unless you’re a professional audiophile, they will probably do the trick, once you’re dusted off that collection of records that has been gathering dust in a dark corner of your basement.
Once I plugged in the handsome little machine, I ventured down into a corner of my basement that I should have visited long ago…if for nothing else, than for a good cleaning…
That’s where I found a pretty eclectic collection of vinyl albums–everything from a half dozen Peter, Paul & Mary records, to the Eagles, The Mamas & The Papas, to Gheorghe Zamfir, the Romanian pan flute musician. My modest collection of Hungarian vinyl records was even more colourful: sixties, seventies and eighties groups like Omega, LGT and Bikini sat next to an album, produced in the US and with a bilingual English/Hungarian cover, from forties and fifties singer Anny Kapitány. If I ever throw a 1940’s style party, Ms. Kapitány and my Katalin Karády vinyls are going to be the stars of the evening.
My new Crosley Cruiser record player…
When I first started buying vinyl at two record stores in downtown Ottawa in 2007, you could peruse endless bins of vinyl albums from the sixties, seventies, eighties and early nineties, but rarely would you come across a new release. That started to change a few years ago, as vinyl sales began to increase for several consecutive years. Vinyl sales have jumped by a staggering 260% since 2009. In 2014, there were 9.2 million vinyl album sales in the United States and the first quarter figures from 2015 show sales up by 52% over the comparable period in 2014. Vinyl seems to be the only area within the music industry where there has been consecutive growth, as CD sales continue their nosedive and as even MP3 purchases decline (in favour of subscription-based streaming options, where you don’t actually own any music, but simply pay each month for access to a virtual library of songs).
This article by Mario Aguilar provides some insight into why people choose to buy vinyl in a digital age where music is abundant, convenient and portable across multiple devices. Listening to music is an experience, with the physical act of the purchase, the tangibility of ownership, the involvement required in flipping a record from one side to another, the cover design and inserts, and the texture provided by the sound of the occasional scratches. Most of the new vinyl albums come with codes to download the music, making LPs portable in a way that they never were before.
And besides, there’s nothing better than reading about vinyl, while listening to it on a bright Sunday morning in November.
