When you give a girl a vinyl...

Record Player: Urban Outfitters 

I was introduced to this week's wonder of yesteryear thanks to my older brother. About 3 years ago, my brother had racked up quite a collection of vinyl; everything from Dust in the Wind to Mozart's Requiem. Vinyl as cheap as $1 were to blame for his racks on racks on racks of records. At the time I hadn't formed any sort of opinion about record players. They were those old boxes that used needles on black plates to make a bunch of noise. No thank you.

However, after some persistence and convincing on my brother's part, I started to understand his infatuation with the technology of yore.

Thrift find albums

In my opinion, vinyl has better sound quality than most MP3s. With a well kept record and a decent turn-table vinyl can sound richer, fuller, and can tap into the instrumentals often gone unnoticed by digital music (no I did not hear satanic tongues when we played back the track).

The upside: price. With a steady increase in hipster glory, retro gadgets like the Polaroid and penny-farthing bicycles are coming back into production. My mom was even able to purchase my record player (Yeay Christmas!) at Urban Outfitters. They even sell vinyl from modern day records. Christ, I even went in an saw Miley Cyrus' Bangerz album on vinyl! Check out more collections here. Of course I'm into the oldies. Hence the thrift store BeeGees, Boston and Zeppelin.

The downside: maintenance: Vinyl is very hard to keep. If you want to ensure that your records last, you need to take good care of them. That means cleaning them regularly with a micro-brush and storing them at room temp, dry conditions. Other tips on how to keep your 70s in chickety-check can be found here.

Worth it? Yes. I like retro things. If enjoying old Polaroids and wearing flannel makes me a hipster then slap my ass and pass me the low fat, soy, vanilla latte (which I also love...not proving my case well).

Conclusion: if you want to love music more, you'll love vinyl.

Cheers,
K