“I’ve always been enamored with vinyl. Since the day I stumbled upon my parents’ collection as a tween, I’ve been an avid collector.”
“Everything about vinyl, from the album artwork, packaging, and analog sound was incredibly seductive. Vinyl was more than just a vessel for music; it was an artifact. CDs faced a short lifespan, existing only to be downloaded and then abandoned on the car floor.
In a time when the closest thing to tangible music was the sleek edge of an ipod, vinyl served as a physical, as well as aesthetically pleasing, musical manifestation. Because of these qualities, I started collecting records far before I actually acquired a record player.
I couldn’t help myself. Every time I entered Amoeba, I was greeted by legions of records, all begging to be taken home and carefully catalogued on my shelves among my other musical trophies. As you can imagine, when I was finally given a record player for Christmas one year, I spent the following week quarantined in my room with piles of vinyl. Of course, I wouldn’t stand for the conventional Christmas vinyl experience. The first thing I listened to was “Fairytale of New York” by The Pogues.
Today, vinyl also serves an additional function. When one encounters a song they don’t feel like listening to, iTunes and Spotify make shuffling through or skipping to another song effortless. On the other hand, vinyl forces the listener to hear the whole record, front to back.
Consequently, the order of the songs becomes crucial. Vinyl has made me confront such issues as compilation and organization in my own musical endeavors. What track do I want people to hear first? Where do I put the title track? It is because of vinyl that these factors are still relevant in today’s music.
But most important to me, analog just sounds better than digital.”
—Phoebe Bridgers
