I woke up with The Police’s Born In the Fifties on my mind. That got me thinking to my early exposure to The Police – in a music store of all quaint places. I vividly remember browsing through The Record Bar in a Columbia, S.C. mall and seeing the Ghost In The Machine logos everywhere. Must have been 1981.
That got me missing the glory days of record stores. My kids may never grow up to know the joy of browsing actual, physical records in racks. There was a kinship there with other customers: just being around would often lead to someone suggesting a band to you you would’ve not otherwise heard. Its not so easy doing that in the age of iTunes (though Pandora comes close).
Except for those annoying clicks and pops, you get better reproduction out of the old vinyl. CDs limit the frequencies that they produce to those that are theoretically audible. But, our bodies get the sense of depth and space from all of those frequencies that you don’t “hear”. It is why I still have a record player.