Yesterday Lynette gave me a bunch of records for my birthday. Among them was my all time favorite album of all time: The Cure Disintegration. Holy shit, does it sound amazing on vinyl! Among the birthday stack was Van Halen, The XX, Justin Timberlake, The Postal Service, and John Mayer.
In this ever expanding age of tiny devices and compressed data, I am proud to say that when I go home I will turn on my Audio Technica SL120 record player, slide a record out of a large, art-adorned sleeve, and sit down on my couch while Robert Smith's haunting voice envelopes me.
We the music consuming people of the world, need to go back to the roots of what it means to listen. Music has turned into that noise you ignore while shopping for groceries. Music was not invented to make awkward elevator rides a little less (or more) awkward. Listening to music -real music- is not a passive activity.
We've grown into such an efficient sound bite world that we've forgotten about our souls. Our starving souls. If going to church bring you closer to God and opens your hearts to His love, then hearing The Cure's Swimming the Same Deep Water as You on vinyl greases the hinges of the door to my soul where I can step out into the world naked and alive and ready.
Listening to vinyl is like being aware of every breath you take. Of course, our bodies are designed to breath involuntarily and without the need of conscious thought, but that just makes its awareness that much more meaningful. Perhaps the word I'm alluding to is gratitude. Miles Davis' Kind of Blue on vinyl might bring a tear to your eye if you actually listen to it.
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