A record tells a story

Who owned your records before they came into your life? Who will inherit them when you are gone?

Do you ever wonder, on your way back from the record store with some second-hand vinyl, who exactly owned this record?

Maybe someone inherited a collection they had no interest in keeping. Perhaps they were in need of some cash.

At some point, though, someone will have chosen that record, or received it as a gift. They will have played it and (hopefully) enjoyed it.

Now it’s your turn.

In a similar vein, when tearing the shrink off a brand new record, as you are about to spin it for the very first time, has it ever occurred to you that you are, in effect, giving it life?

There’s a word in Spanish for using or wearing something for the very first time: estrenar. Forgive me while the linguist in me comes out to explain. There’s no equivalent in English that can convey the exact same meaning. At least, not with the same effect.

“Use/wear for the first time”, yes, but there’s a certain emotion… a playful, child-like excitement implied in the Spanish verb that gets lost in translation. Like an inauguration ceremony, or a christening, but in a quite intimate, private way. It automatically creates (or reinforces) an emotional link between the user and the object.

Source: Collins Spanish-English dictionary

Anyway, I digress. My point is: a record tells a story. It’s fascinating to think that what you found today in the bargains section of a record store once lived on the shelves of God knows how many different houses.

Maybe the record was the main source of enjoyment for a quirky collector who died of an overdose. Or was taken to rehab.

It may well have been the soundtrack to a new romance. Perhaps an entire family, decades ago, played it to celebrate some good news.

Someone somewhere in some corner of this world owned it and lived with it. And now it’s yours. You have, if you will, given it a new lease of life.

Equally, when you buy a brand new record, you can’t know for sure what it will witness, let alone where it will end up.

Will it be playing in the background when you find out you got your dream job? Or when your son or daughter introduces you to a significant other whom you will learn to love as your own?

When you pass away and your loved ones find it among your possessions, what will they do with it?

Maybe they will check its value to see if it can help with some bills. Or they may decide to keep it so they can reconnect with you every time they play it. Bring you back to life, so to speak. Through your records.

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I can waste a ton of ink (or rather, get cramps in my hands) writing about the technical aspects that make vinyl, in my view, superior. We can discuss analogue versus digital, sound compression, and the tangible benefits of owning the music you love.

There is so much information contained in the grooves of a record that digital systems can’t process it without taking samples of it.

I’d like to think it’s not just music that lives within the surface of a record. It can’t be.

It’s the same recording as in other formats, yes. But with vinyl, there’s always something else. The sound is so distinctive — you cannot not hear it.

What is it, exactly? This is one of the greatest mysteries in the field of audio reproduction. The coldest, most pragmatic sound engineer will admit that even vinyl records pressed from digital masters will still sound somewhat different… more vinyly, as it were.

No one can (fully) explain why.

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If you are lost for words next time someone asks you why vinyl, why spend so much time and money on records, why all this hassle if you can stream music so easily these days, and (my favourite): is vinyl really that much better… well, tell them this.

Tell them you are not just listening to music. You are writing and rewriting stories. Visiting and revisiting moments strewn across different lifetimes. Getting a glimpse into the sorrow and joy of another person whilst expressing your own.

You are creating snapshots that will forever live within your records. You are recovering something someone once felt, and infusing it with your essence.

You are immortalising actions and people and places. You are connecting with someone’s legacy, or crafting your own.

You are time-travelling. Picking up where another left off. Immersing yourself into the previous owner’s life, hopes and dreams. Recalling family dramas. Hearing someone’s laughter. Recapturing events scattered through history and transforming them.

You are living and loving and everything that comes in between while a record is playing in the background, hoping that some day, in some remote corner of this world, someone will, through that record, honour your life, relish their own… and pay it forward.

Thank you for reading or listening and, as always, happy spinning.