Good Vibrations

Vinyl is dead.  Long live vinyl!

I say this not only as an audiophile and unapologetic music snob, of which I am both, but as a person who misses the pre-digital age.  The irony of proclaiming this via blog post does not escape me.  What I refer to more than anything is how the digital age has completely bastardized the way that we consume music.

There was a time when music was released on LPs.  The vibrations of the music were encoded onto a thin, black disc of vinyl and shellac.  These discs, "records" as they were so named, were then spun at a pre-determined speed while a small needle traveled through the pre-recorded groove, transmitting those vibrations to an amplifier, which would then relay said vibrations either through a set of speakers or a pair of headphones (clearly the preferred format).

When creating an album, musicians put an incredible amount of forethought and effort into arranging the tracks in just such a way that the listener would actually experience the music, the way the artist so specifically intended, from start to finish.  Albums like Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here", Led Zeppelin's "III", and The Beatles' "Revolver" were complete odysseys through auditory landscapes and profound storytelling.

Today, music is encoded into binary language, a never ending series of ones and zeroes, and stored on a hard drive.  These bleeps and bloops can be accessed at will with the push of a button, and be transmitted through the jankiest of all devices of audio projection; the earbud.  We can sign into iTunes and download single-songs-worth of ones and zeroes at a time, and listen to them completely stripped of not only their audio fidelity, but their fidelity as a piece of something greater than themselves.

Our culture of convenience has a similar impact on many facets of daily life.  Due primarily to our increasing laziness, the food we eat is more and more commonly microwaved or flash-fried.  Instead of actually getting outdoors and exercising, we can now stay in the comforting confines of our living rooms and "exercise" via Wii Fit (don't get me wrong, I love playing Wii and other video games as much if not more so than the next guy, but it's certainly not a suitable replacement for physical activity).  In fact, many kids today can barely write because of such a heavy focus on typing and text-messaging.  Spellcheck programs eliminate the need for natural spelling accuracy.  As much as these technological innovations contribute to our lives being easier, they are incredibly detrimental to the quality of our experiences.

I highly recommend that as soon as possible, you find a friend with a turntable and some records, maybe your parents (or at this point in time more likely your grandparents), plug in a pair of over-the-ear headphones, put the needle at the beginning of the groove, and take a trip.  I guarantee you'll enjoy having done so, and you'll quite likely hear things in the recording that you could never have heard before.