On Another Note…Vinyl, Long Forgotten, Turns New Tables
My serious spring-into-summer cleaning has turned up forgotten treasures and brought back a flood of memories as pangs of nostalgia mix with current realities to remind me of things I miss, including a big record collection.
What timing that I’d come across several articles about the revival of vinyl records in a very AI, digital and streaming age! It’s also been a welcome distraction from all the depressing news in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Out popped a record of Edith Piaf in my treasure trove. She was a popular 20th century French singer whose renditions tugged at one’s heartstrings and represented the very essence of France.
The album was a gift that I, unfortunately, never enjoyed because I haven’t had a record player in decades.
In fact, my father was the buyer of a German Grundig stereo console that combined a multi-band radio (for those old enough to remember AM and shortwave broadcasts) and a turntable that played 33, 45 and 78 RPM records.
German products were considered superior back in the day before being upended by equally good and more versatile Japanese appliances and devices.
The console had a space in the lower part large enough to accommodate a reel-to-reel tape recorder that predated cassette recorders and, eventually, CD players, iPods and later incarnations of music transmitting devices or apps.
It was a handsome piece of furniture on which my artistic mother deposited her beautiful Ikebana flower arrangements and other dainty touches.
In later years we acquired a Sony recorder but the sound was mono and tinny by today’s standards. At some point I insisted we get a stereo recorder but none of the newer Japanese models were compatible with the console.
So, I had to contend with our portable and heavy recorder playing different size magnetic tapes long before standardization and inter-usability of any type.
The pleasure, of course, was listening to my collection of 33 and 45 RPM records in stereo that blasted through two speakers hidden behind the Grundig façade.
Pop music, country and western, a wide range of jazz, various permutations of Latin, Greek, classical, folkloric songs and tunes from around the world, and, Arabic instrumentals and vocals.
At one point, when I worked at a radio station, I’d “borrow” albums — we weren’t allowed to take them out, but I did, wink, wink — to record on my newly purchased cassette tape recorder which I managed to connect to the stereo console.
It was a dream come true. The entire station’s library was at my disposal and I took full advantage of the contents I liked by transferring them onto those smaller audio vehicles which I still have.
But my smaller personal collection of records had to find a new home when I went to college to complete my education since I’d worked between my sophomore and junior years.
Too big and costly to take. By then I’d recorded everything I wanted onto cassette tapes that had become all the rage and to which I added a nice collection of CDs over the years. I didn’t get into the eight-track tapes craze.
But it’s the resurrection of vinyl records that struck me.
According to Jilayne Jordan, as of 2007, “something remarkable happened: Vinyl record sales started increasing year over year, a trend that still shows no signs of stopping. Defying the odds and surprising many in the music industry, including manufacturers, vinyl records are experiencing an unexpected renaissance in the digital age.”
In 2022, vinyl records officially surpassed CDs as the most popular physical recorded music format for the first time since 1987 (41.3 million units sold vs. 33.4 million units for CDs), Jordan added.
As for why this is happening, Jordan attributed the revival to the following:
Record Store Day, which was launched in 2008 to celebrate and promote the unique culture of independent record stores in the US. It’s been a regular feature since.
Other reasons Jordan cited were the pandemic, nostalgia, digital burnout, collectability and aesthetics.
In June, the Reynolds Center for Business Journalism reported that when Taylor Swift released her latest album The Tortured Poets Department, it shattered vinyl record sales when over 800,000 physical copies were sold in the first week.
Vinyl, or phonograph records, named after the phonograph machine that Thomas Edison invented in 1887 on which to play those cylindrical items, didn’t really take off until the mid-1900s when they were made out of polyvinyl chloride, a type of plastic created in the early 1900s, the report said.
The British Pathé company produced an instructive brief film on the making of phonograph records between 1918 and 1984.
A Library of Congress item on the history of Edison sound recordings quotes the inventor as saying after hearing his own voice played back to him from his first tin foil phonograph: “I was never so taken aback in my life — I was always afraid of things that worked the first time.”
Fast forward to 2024 and my quest for a turntable to play my Edith Piaf record and convert it into a digital format for easy listening on my phone and laptop.
I also want to digitize a record I found in the attic of my parents’ wedding ceremony. They’d recorded their vows on a two-sided 78 RPM album.
It would be a lovely souvenir to hear and preserve.