“I am from Washington, D.C. and recently moved just a couple of miles out into Virginia, and now I live very close to an amazing record store called CD Cellar. It has an extensive collection of music and I feel spoiled rotten that it’s so close.”
“I have a vinyl wall in my apartment where I display twelve albums, which I’ll change from time to time, but right now the albums on display are; ANOHNI’s Hopelessness, Father John Misty’s records I love you, Honeybear and Fear Fun, Tribe Called Quest Midnight Marauders, Radiohead In Rainbows, Tame Impala Currents, Niki & The Dove Instinct, Jamie XX In Colour, Kanye West My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, and Prince Purple Rain.
When I am figuring out my own album artwork the real test for me is asking myself, “Would I want to hang this on my wall”? If it won’t look beautiful as a 12” then it isn’t good enough to be the album art.
My earliest obsessions were Michael Jackson and The Carpenters. I had a Fisher price Tape recorder that basically became another appendage, as I never wanted to be without music. This dependence with music was a learned trait because my family was the same way. We moved, on average, every two years due to my father’s occupation in the military and my mom wouldn’t let the movers take the stereo system.
She would put the speakers and the entire bulky stereo system in the car with us and it was the first thing to set up in the new houses we’d move into, which we loved. The new scary, empty houses would instantly feel like home when she’d start the music. It was how we broke in our new home, carefully picking a first song letting it fill the empty rooms.
I’ve always loved vinyl. I love how it feels, I love the strange anxiety I get trying to drop the needle down in the exact right spot. It’s such a reward when you place it right where your favorite song starts. It makes your heart race, which is something that pressing a touch screen to play a song, will never give you.
My mom recounts my love for vinyl, and specifically Michael Jackson’s Thriller, as there was period of time where I would carry it around the house—whereever I was at, it was there too, including pre-school. One day I decided to sit on it so no one could take it from me and then scooted across the floor not realizing at my ripe age of three that I’d now ruined it (this is after I had worn its cover down so much it fell off the record).
She said I cried when she showed me it was unplayable, and ever since I’ve handled my vinyl as though it were glass.”
—Bobbie Allen
Young Summer’s “You Would Have Loved It Here” EP arrives in stores today, October 28, 2016.
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PHOTO: SHERVIN LAINEZ
