I Miss My Old Vinyl Records

Do you remember your first vinyl album, I still remember getting KISS Alive 2 for Christmas and two days later having to get another needle just so I could continue the repetitious playing of that album.  I still have in my music collection (somewhere), 45's and those big, bulky 33 1/3 RPM vinyl albums.  By the way, why was it 33 1/3, couldn't it have been 32 or 34?

In the grand spectrum of the music world, vinyl records regardless of size and RPM made the music we heard more accessible and it didn't matter if the radio stations in our area played the music we were listening to, they would catch up.  But records gave the music feeling, with each pop or skip the music felt solid and with each revolution of the turntable the music got even more character.

The music, mechanically grooved into the disk of vinyl, sounded so fresh, IF the record was brand new and so was the needle but as the record plodded its way along that never ending circle the quality of the music began to pick up noise.  Noise isn't a bad thing, but the downfall for vinyl was the abrasive quality of the needle as well as temperature and as a result, the record would begin to sound ragged.  Heat, the great enemy to any material of a plastic nature, wreaked havoc on our beloved records and when they warped, they were gone for the ages.

Despite the issues, the music contained on that vinyl was some of the most important music in history.  Starting in the earliest days of records and record players, people like Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly and bands like The Temptations, Cream graced vinyl long before the 8-Track, cassette players, and the CD.  If you have ever listened to an old 45 / album of The Jackson 5, you can feel its history, unfortunately with the advent of CD technology, much if that feeling had waned.

I really should examine the vinyl world once again, perhaps with a turntable with USB capability so I can remember my favorites the way I heard them so long ago, I miss the skips, noise and ragged sound.  Its time to dig out that KISS album and Rock 'n Roll All Night like I did in 1978.