The resurgence of the vinyl record

Bought this vinyl record, sealed, the
same day I wrote this article
I've been a fan of the vinyl record since I remember. I'm not that old at 34 years old but I remember these big black things weren't sold anymore circa 1991. The other popular media at the time was the compact cassette, or just cassette as we used to call it. Awful technology. Always hated how it sounded. It was handy but the sound quality was so terrible that I preferred not to carry music with me. Then the CD was popular and it sounded good but, I don't know... It never was the same. So I started buying vinyls in 1996 to start a collection. Many years passed and at least in my side of the world no one even remembered them. I actively started looking for good printed music like five years ago. I came across a marketplace called DiscoGS which is very much like eBay but just for records. Awesome place. Easy to start your online inventory, look for records, mark them in a want-list so you can check the market for what you're looking for. You can find records in mint condition, or used in near-mint to good condition from almost any country you can think of. I've bought many from the UK and Germany. Most sellers are physical record stores which have their catalogs online so it's totally secure to buy from them. They know perfectly how to pack so they won't arrive broken.


AT-LP120-USB Direct-Drive Professional Turntable that
I bought back in august 2011 from Amazon
Funny thing is, something happened. Somehow the millenials got interested in what was considered an obsolete; even absurd technology. Somehow there were new long-play records printed. I did some research and I found articles telling that there were so few places to cut and print a record that companies were struggling to cope with the demand. Now Amazon sells LPs like pancakes and almost every serious artist release gets printed. So what happened? People picked up the idea of having a big cardboard photograph of their artists in their hands... I went to San Fran last december and found lots and lots of newly printed records, and lots and lots of different newly developed record players, which I like to call "turntables". Now there are even wall-mounted and portable players like in the 60s. Now I went to a coffee-library (coffeebrary as they call themselves) and got out with four albums under my arm. Last time I could do that was maybe 1990. I felt so special...

So what are you waiting for? Go to your nearest Urban Outfitters and get an Audio Technica LP120 USB turntable which by the way, doesn't require any obscure connections or amplifiers. You can connect it either to your computer directly or to any auxiliary input, order some records from Amazon, Best Buy, or DiscoGS and start groovin'!

You can load the stock needle at 2.3 grams to avoid over-wearing your records! 
Location: San José Insurgentes, Benito Juárez, 03900 Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cinematic Orchestra - Man with a moving camera

Image
So, if you want to feel high on music, if you like wooden instruments, if you like warm harmonies, you will like this. There are no lyrics here. Just beautiful string progressions accompanied by acoustic upright bass, a nice drum set, a Fender Rhodes electric piano, and some incidental atmospheric synth sounds that never bit into the rest of the music. Track 1 and 2 are a waste. Track 3 is where the album actually starts.. You'll only hear a very melancholic progression of strings. Very mellow, very sad. And it continues for several minutes until track 4 where it cheers up. The sound is very much like Sonar Kollektiv Orchester, like if it was recorded live in a tall studio. All goes well until track 6 where reminds me more of a Thelonius Monk composition. Track 7 goes back to a delicious funky-rhythmed harmony. Track 8 gets eclectic combined with a mission-impossible-ish melody in a hip-hop mood. All acoustic. Track 9 is another waste. 10 is a somewhat boring piano solo, then 1
Read more

Classic: Donna Summer - Four Seasons of Love

Image
Given the death of the disco movement icon I must say that even as I don't like most mainstream music, there were a couple of songs I went nuts for when I discovered disco music back when I was three years old. "McArthur Park" and "I feel love" from Donna Summer. Many many years later, when I was starting my vinyl collection a friend music producer and arranger just threw away his almost 800 records, just because the media was obsolete and he didn't new I was looking for records; disco music records. He probably owned almost every disco record in existence. He traveled to west germany, england, and the US to learn how to produce disco music for mexican artists between 1977 and 1979. Obviously I wanted to assassinate him but I didn't have the courage. He kept a couple of records though. One was "Get Up and Boogie" by Silver Convention and the other was this one. In emotional repair he gifted both to me so I ran to my turn table to listen and
Read more