I’ve been listening to a lot of vinyl lately. After years of procrastination, I finally put together a proper stereo system and picked up a new turntable. It’s been great. There’s something extremely satisfying about listening to records. It’s not just the warmer sound of vinyl (although that’s certainly part of it), but I think an even bigger draw is the routine.
These days it’s just too easy to toss on Pandora or a playlist with a few hundred songs. And then you can go do something else. The music becomes background noise.
Listening to records is different. The couple minutes it takes to pick out an album and put it onto the turntable is an investment. It’s small, but you’re not going to do it unless you’re actually planning on listening to music as an activity. And then once you start, it’s too much work to change the album every song or two, so you listen instead of think about what you should play next.
Most artists put a lot of put a lot of thought into the track order of their releases. This ‘art of the album’ gets lost when the music gets chopped up into different playlists. I’m not only enjoying rediscovering some of my favorite records in their entirety, but also the thought that goes into the track order of each side of a record.
And then there’s the notion of building a music collection. I love variety, but I do have to admit that there’s something nice about only owning 27 records. I’m getting to know them all really well, and for the reasons described above, each addition is a lot more exciting than getting a new album on iTunes.
Here are a few of my favorites:
1. Exile on Main Street: I’ve always loved this album, but it’s much more impressive on vinyl. It may not be the most original recommendation, but that’s alright. It’s two discs, and keeps it’s momentum the entire way through. It’s the definition of a good rock record. I also recently learned that it was finished in 1971 while the Stones were living in Keith Richards’ villa in the French Riviera so that the band could evade taxes in the UK. On a side note, I’ve heard Keith’s autobiography is actually pretty good.
2. In Rainbows: This album has grown on me quite a bit over time. I paid £1.00 for it on Radiohead’s website a few years ago when it was first released, and initially I wasn’t too impressed. But over time I’ve come to appreciate it. And now that I’ve been listening to it much more frequently, it might actually top ‘OK Computer’ as my favorite Radiohead album. I was, however, a bit disappointed that the bonus tracks didn’t come with the record.
3. Jacksonville City Nights: This is the country album for people that don’t like country music. And it’s also, in my opinion, the last great album that Ryan Adams put out. He was on a tear that year, and also released the Cold Roses double disc (which I’m hoping to add to my collection). The record came with a few demos that weren’t included on the original release, including a version of ‘A Kiss Before I Go’ that I think is even better than the final version.
4. Taj Mahal (Self-Titled): I have yet to find another person knows this album (aside from my dad who originally played it for me), but it’s one of my favorite blues recordings. Great guitar work, good rhythm, and lots of harmonica. This was the first album released by Taj back in 1968, and while I haven’t heard the majority of his other albums, I have yet to hear one that comes close to this. If you’re into blues, this is definitely worth checking out.
5. More of Roy Orbison’s Greatest Hits: What? It was $1.99 in the bargain bin at a local record shop, and happens to have become one of my favorites. I don’t even know what’s on the original ‘Roy Orbision’s Greatest Hits,’ but this one’s going to be tough to top. One of the highlights is the second track on the first side, ‘Blue Bayou.’ I’ve actually broken my rule of listening to a record the entire way through more times than I’d like to admit so I could listen to that song.
That’s all for now. Any recommendations for me?