50 Million Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong. Seriously, they are incapable of being incorrect.
[First off, I make no apologies for not having updated my blog in six months. OK, some apology, as I’m an inveterate apologizer. There, I’m sorry. Also, please continue to read the brilliant Food on the Food and a new favorite, the excellent Color. Me. Blah. Oh, and hi to my readers. Hi Dad!)]
[Also, the title of this post is lifted from Phil Spector’s famous “Back to Mono” catch phrase; I recently got the “Back to Mono” box set from the Newton Free Library. He is bat-shit crazy, but his music is genius. If I had to rank those, I'd say, 1. Bat-shit crazy; 2. Genius.]
Recently OH: So I asked my friend what she and her boyfriend were doing. “Oh, we turned off the TV and listened to some LPs. You know, vinyl.” [I’m paraphrasing, but let’s just go with it—ed.]
Really? Just hanging out and listening to vinyl?
That sounded fantastic. When was the last time I put an album on? It sounded particularly awesome since I had spent the previous nights falling asleep on the couch during the 8 p.m. showing of “The Backyardigans” on Noggin, only to wake up in a large pool of my own drool, my five-year old having once again stayed awake longer than his old man.
As someone who eschewed cassettes and collected albums from 1978 or so until the dawn of the CD era in 1989,I was intrigued. (Since the late 1980s, I listened primarily to CDs; since 2003, the iPod. Only recently, in a comparison of lossless encoding to MP3s, did I realize that my ears had become entirely accustomed to the compressed sounds of MP3s. Since I’m nuts, I rectified that by re-encoding all 1,600 of my CDs. My family was understandably supportive, particularly since I lied and said I was doing important work for my job and/or the U.S. government.)
(Also, I am a prodigious collector of music. If I ever tried to fake my own death and start a new life somewhere else, I’m pretty sure that if the authorities checked with Apple, they would find me in about five minutes. “We’ve started a ten-state manhunt … oh wait, there he is. He just *had* to download the 40th anniversary version of ‘Get Your Ya Yas Out.’”)
First, some thoughts on LPs:
Coolest Things About Vinyl
- That awesome “shoomp” noise you get when you first put down the needle.
- Liner notes and album art you can actually read/see without a magnifying glass.
- The fact that once you put the needle down, it’s a lot of work to change songs. So you’re forced to listen to entire sides of records, just like the artist intended. Or at least he/she did at one point.
- Sides of records.
- The awesome black skaty bit at the end of each side.
- The handwriting between the black skaty bit and the label.
- Circular labels!
- The fun of playing something like Bob Dylan’s “Brownsville Girl” on 45 instead of 33. Hilarious, trust me.
Shortcomings of Vinyl:
- Portability is a challenge. You can’t really play them in the car or at the gym. [Yes, that was a gratuitous "hey, look at me, I work out" reference; guilty as charged]
- You’re either a hipster wannabe (again, guilty), a pretentious audiophile snob (there’s this guy I grew up with with the same last name as me, first name rhymes with Fawn, same last name, shared my bedroom from 1973-1984), or hopelessly behind the times if you’re listening to vinyl. No one just grabs a stack of LP wax unless they have a reason. And usually that reason is pretty awesome.
- You can’t keep them in your attic, unless you live above the 80N parallel. Trust me on this one.
- It’s important to clean them regularly. Like more than every six new apartments/homes.
- If you are a heavy walker, or have kids, albums will skip.
L and R -- Al Jolson. Yeah. Sorry about that.
So finally last Friday night, I went down to the basement and went through my LPs. I had gotten rid of many of them during the 1990s when I replaced them with CDs (man, that was shortsighted; sorry, Bob Dylan’s Infidels; um, it’s not you, it’s me, Taco’s Puttin’ on the Hits). The LPs have moved with me from home to college to three DC-area post-college apartments, a place in Somerville, an aborted trip to the suburbs in Bedford, another place in Somerville and my current home in West Newton. Mostly, they’ve stayed in boxes. However, last year, when my parents downsized their home (well, lateral-sized it), my Dad (from whom I’ve inherited my quasi-unhealthy obsession with record collection) went through his prodigous music collection and passed along a few boxes to me. I didn’t pick, he did. The results were, well, mixed.
The Good:
- Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds in glorious mono (doesn’t really get any better than that) – in a recent interview, the object of Harrison3’s relatively unrequited mancrush, Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, called mono “mainlining pop music,” and after a few dozen listens, I agree.
- An original pressing of Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall
- An original pressing of the Rolling Stones’ Flowers
- A treasure trove of 78s, from Al Jolson to – well, some different Al Jolson songs. Still cool.
The Bad:
- Do I really need the entire Glen Campbell discography? I really would have been fine with Rhinestone Cowboy, simply for the goof. OK, it’s a guilty pleasure. Don’t you judge me, gentle reader.
"Dad, really, I only want 'Rhinestone Cowboy.' In fact, I only want that song, maybe I'll just get it on iTunes. Fine, I'll take the LP. Wait, I have to take 'The Glen Campbell Good Time Album' too? Fine ... Wait, and Glen Frey's 'No Fun Aloud'? Why? Beacuse they're both named Glen? Fine."
The Ugly:
- Kenny Rogers’ and The Carptenters’ entire 1980s oeuvres (not the peak for either; not even “so good it’s bad.”). I have also learned there is no secondary market for these. At all.
Kenny Rogers' "What About Me" and other late-1980s masterpieces from The Gambler himself are now available starting at $.01 on eBay (no reserve!) from seller FlyWilliams
So I hooked my turntable up and have been listening to some great LPs, and even picked up a few new ones yesterday (Wilco’s Wilco (the Album) on heavyweight vinyl; Neil Young’s On the Beach). I’ve even enjoyed listening to albums that I have since purchased in at least one other format (The Replacements’ Pleased to Meet Me, R.E.M.’s Dead Letter Office). And while I love being captive to an entire side of an album, and really love the feeling of superiority that comes from pretending to being able to hear the “warmth” that comes from listening on record), at least 60 percent of the time I’ve had to stop during the first two tracks so someone who shall remain nameless can watch the aforementioned Backyardigans.
I need to figure out this portability thing. Or buy a few more turntables.
