Vinyl Stuff (2014)

I'm currently wearing large headphones and listening to Alice Cooper's "Love It To Death" album (1971) on my turntable. I bought it in a little record store in New Hampshire some time around 1990, when my Alice fanaticism was taking off. The record was one of many items I had Alice autograph when I first met him in 1996.

No, I'm not a vinyl snob. In fact I still don't buy the claim that vinyl is some amazingly sonically superior medium. "But, but, it's how music was meant to sound!" No, it's how music HAD to be listened to, because we didn't have much of a choice. Vinyl is scratchier, distorted, and cumbersome. I have had both vinyl and CD copies of some of the same albums, listened to both through good systems, and concluded that my ears preferred the clarity of a CD. I trust my ears more than hipsters.

I got rid of most of my old vinyl, and if I buy any these days, it's because I can't find the recording on CD (some of my 1950s Martin Denny records come to mind), or it's something I stumbled upon in a store that looked really good and was cheap (some comedy albums come to mind). But even in those cases, the first thing I do is transfer it to my hard drive.

So why was I listening tonight? Well, I also just bought a 4-record box set from the Black Crowes, and started listening to that when I decided to put on something else. Listening to vinyl is certainly a different experience because of the rituals involved in the set up, and having to pay more attention to the process because you're going to have to get up and flip slides, let alone change records after an hour or less. I understand the appeal. But inherent superiority? No, I'm not buying it.

(Here's an older post on the same topic, with a link to a related article.)