“My relationship with vinyl started when I was a kid in the early ’80s, and more than the records themselves it was almost like an infatuation with the look of my dad’s player. He had a Dual that he bought in Singapore before emigrating to Vancouver. It was sitting in a really cool looking teak enclosure with a sprung plinth and dark plastic cover—it just looked so badass to me, yet so clean and modern at the same time.”
“My dad didn’t have a huge record collection, probably because of the cost of shipping his belongings over from Singapore, but there was this one Bollywood record of his that I loved—Salma & Sabina Sing The Hits Of Abba In Hindi. I loved the flip open cover and would stare at the two beautiful women sitting in the convertible forever. I am confident that my love for ABBA to this day is due to my introduction to them through the Hindi versions of their hits. In my 20’s I gave that record to a DJ friend of mine, so it’s in good hands, but I sure wish I had it back now.
About five years ago, when I finally had the space, I went and grabbed that same turntable from my dad and had it refurbished and got it working smooth like butter. (I also grabbed his late ’70s pioneer speakers to maximize that full round warm sound.) However, I had to set some clear boundaries as to what type of vinyl I’m allowed to buy so that I don’t go spending all my money looking for rare Bollywood versions of popular songs, and more importantly I wanted my vinyl collection to be something special—full of songs and albums that I don’t listen to on the everyday while streaming, where I mostly listen to new rap and trap stuff.
Now that I have a son I wanted the time spent listening to vinyl to be intentional, time spent being present, which I think is missing now where music is abundantly available at our fingertips and almost taken for granted. Thus, I love having to turn the record over after four songs, I love that I have to touch the sleeve to remove the record, I love that the records smell old and are worn around the corners—it’s truly a collection rather than a pile of music or a playlist. My stipulations when buying vinyl are as follows: Must be under 10 dollars per album, nothing new (there will be exceptions to this I’m sure), and albums that remind me of my childhood—so mostly ’80s stuff.
A couple of years ago I was in Neptoon Records in Vancouver searching for children’s albums for my kid and stumbled upon a copy of Smurfing Land from 1979. I had owned this as a child, the only record I owned before adulthood, and I loved listening to it on my dad’s headphones. I had to buy it, for my kid not me of course! Okay maybe for both of us.
My go-to shop is Lotusland in Vancouver. They have a great selection of ’80s albums and I was able to pick up Alien Shores by Platinum Blonde, a Canadian band from Ontario—you know the kind with big hair and fake English accents? I actually had a bootleg of their album as a kid because at the time there was a record shop called Hot Wax in Richmond, a suburb of Vancouver where I grew up, and they would rent records out. My dad would rent what my brother and I wanted and go home and record it to tape for us—not exactly legit but I really appreciated having those albums. Gotta love Mark Holmes’ high vocals on the chorus of “Crying Over You.” And the whininess of “Situation Critical” is just so amazingly ’80s.
Culture Club’s Colour By Numbers has all the right feelings of nostalgia. I picked this one up from Lotusland too. Helen Terry’s backing vocals on this record are simply amazing—she just soars! The best part of this might just be the fact that my three and a half year old son knows the words to “Karma Chameleon,” that’s enough to make an ’80s kid happy. This song resonated with me so hard when I first saw the video on Much Music (Canadian Music Video Channel) and still does to this day. And the intro harmonica piece is so distinctive, it gives me the “oh that’s my jam” kinda feel.”
—Sanjay Seran
Delhi 2 Dublin’s latest studio album We Got This is in stores now.
