“However it happened, if you’re reading this, you’re probably a vinyl enthusiast and at some point IT happened to you. You realized that listening to vinyl records was different from any other way you had ever experienced music. You’ve at some point felt compelled to JUST SIT and listen to an album. You’ve noticed that the hair on your arms stood up just a little bit higher. You may have cried a little.”
“As my favorite 8-year-old watches Mary Tyler Moore throw a dinner party on the Dick Van Dyke Show for the hundredth time, it hits me. THIS is why the vinyl enthusiast rebirth is so important. For MTM and friends, having a dinner was an event, not just a zombified action you did in front of the television. There is a parallel here with music.
We’ve disengaged. We turned off, we tuned out. We don’t want the full experience. We want the CliffsNotes (see what I did there?). We ARE mp3s. We are mostly living our lives in the digital format. Correcting little flaws until we have this perfect representation of ourselves, that really isn’t a good representation at all. We’ve taken all the soul, everything that makes us HUMAN and REAL and INTERESTING and covered it with filters.
I, for one, am not perfect and it’s exhausting to keep up the charade. Maybe being a parent gives me another perspective because I don’t want my daughter to grow up having the pressure of being between the lines ALL the time. What would this world be without those wonderful “mistakes” artists have made like that of Merry Clayton’s voice cracking on “Gimme Shelter”?
I understand that there is an occasion for and convenience of a digital playlist. Tour would be rough without it, but it’s usually just background music. Listening to a vinyl record is different. You can make an event out of it. It IS the occasion. You can literally invite friends over for the sole purpose of listening to a record…. You don’t do that with an mp3 download. HA!
My point is, I know that if I put the Supremes on my record player, I’m listening to the Supremes for the next 40 minutes and I’m dancing with my daughter—just like my mom did with me twenty some years ago to Harvest Moon. In that moment, it feels like the most important thing I could ever do. That’s what vinyl does for me. It creates memories.
I remember recovering from a bad breakup with Bread. I remember moving into my new house with The Everly Brothers. I remember my little one discovering her obsession for Elvis. I remember staying up all night to learn to play with Neil Young. I remember hearing my own voice for the first time on a vinyl record.
There is just something about the pleasant crackling of a record that can turn listening into a special occasion and that occasion into a memory.”
—Jessi Williams
The Lonely Wild’s new LP, Chasing White Light is in stores now. On vinyl.
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PHOTO: JONATHAN WEINER
