Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Music Box: The Last Days of Vinyl

A week or two ago I ran into Andy Towle on Seventh Avenue around the corner from my apartment. He was on his afternoon gym break and I was heading home from lunch with Michael and a quick trip to Best Buy where I'd just picked up the new Aimee Mann CD. I was almost embarrassed to be holding it -- Andy went all-digital a few years ago when he moved back to New York, selling his entire CD collection in an all-or-nothing eBay auction in Los Angeles -- yet I still couldn't even fathom giving up my hard copies. As many of you know, I don't do well with change. Any change. The whole iTunes revolution has me reliving the nightmare of the last time something like this happened -- when they first tried to take away my precious record collection. I think some of the music shops where I grew up were selling compact discs by the early '80s, but the selection was always minimal and every time I'd walk past the section I'd giggle and think about how foolish people were going to feel someday for making the "switch," just like the Laserdisc crowd eventually did. (I'm so glad I never bought that "Eat to the Beat" laser disc, you know, "just in case"!) And even though CDs were clearly the way the industry was going by the mid-'80s, I can still remember being in denial well into 1988 when I bought what turned out to be my last two albums: Everything But the Girl's "Idlewild" and Jane Wiedlin's "Fur." I spent 1989 in mourning (how can I have music in different formats by my favorite groups????) then reached a compromise with myself by buying cassettes into the beginning of the new decade (at least I can play them in my car, I reasoned). And then shortly before moving to Southern California in May 1990, I finally cracked and bought my first CD, which I can still remember like it was yesterday.

I was at the Tower Records in the Poca Fiesta Shopping Center in my hometown of Mesa, Arizona, and I only had enough money to buy two (I think they were like $16.99 back then too, another reason I was beside myself!). When you're replacing hundreds of albums, how on earth do you pick just two? (It was very Sophia's Choice.) After giving it much thought -- and carrying Debbie Harry's "Def, Dumb and Blonde" all the way to the register twice, I finally bought Blondie's "AutoAmerican" (my not-so-secret favorite album of theirs) and the (hitherto unavailable) "Desperately Seeking Susan" instrumental soundtrack (I'm a huge Thomas Newman fan). A classic and something new seemed like a good beginning. And from there I never looked back, re-buying my entire 500-album collection and adding new stuff year and year. (I lugged my album collection from coast to coast until I finally got rid of the bulk of it before moving to New York in 1998. I held onto my LPs that never made it into the digital age and in the past couple of years I worked with a DJ friend to convert those albums into CDs, including Slow Children, Jimmy Destri, the Vels, Marilyn, Buckingham Nicks, Haircut 100, Annabella Lwin, some Waitresses, some Romeo Void. )

No sooner did I feel like my CD collection was finally "complete" and now here we go again. (OK, maybe there was a good 18 years building up to this point, but like I said about change -- can't stand it!) These days, I do use iTunes and Amazon's MP3 store from time to time. But it's kind of replaced my need for buying singles. Whether or not I ever make the official leap into the 21st century remains a mystery to me, but given the fact that you can do everything digital with the CD you bought -- plus you get to touch it and read it and love it -- I somehow doubt it. Now whatever you do, don't get me started on this vinyl resurgence ...

Two gems from those last days of vinyl:

"These Early Days" by Everything But the Girl


"Rush Hour" by Jane Wiedlin


8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I buy most of my music digitally, but you miss out on things like the deluxe edition of Aimee Mann's new CD was is in very cool packaging. Reading the liner notes on your PC is also not the same as the thrill of opening up a new LP and pulling out the inner sleeve. I bought my first CD before I had a CD player- it was Madonna's Like A Virgin.

Anonymous said...

My first CD was 'Hounds Of Love' by Kate Bush and I remember being blown away by the quality of the sound and thinking..yes! this is the future! I still have my old albums and I cherish them all. The sad thing about CD's and downloading, is that we no longer have such breathtaking artwork and gatefold album sleeves anymore.
New Order were great for producing gorgeous album artwork.

Mark said...

Thanks for the EBTG link. They were and are awesome. Did you hear Tracey's latest solo album. Excellent!

Anonymous said...

I'm not giving up my hard copies either! I buy most music (singles) through iTunes now but not when I'm getting a whole album. It just doesn't make sense to pay the same price and not have something to physically show for it -- particularly since anything you just download onto a computer or into your ipod is susceptible to being lost to hard drive death.

Anonymous said...

Forgot to mention the one good thing about when the industry transitioned out of vinyl -- when the albums became so cheap that they were practically giving them away for $1 or $2 a piece. That's when I stocked up on hundreds of Motown and New Wave lps I previously couldn't afford as a teenager. I don't see that happening with Cds any time soon.

Bradmo said...

OMG! Thomas Newman!!! I'm a HUGE fan of his. I was a little late to the wagon though, getting started on him with "Fried Green Tomatoes." The score from Shawshank has to be the MOST re-used one ever.

Speaking of classics, only a few more days til I get to see Yaz perform live here in Big D, I'm so f'n excited.

Anonymous said...

I was so similar to you...i bought vinyl only thru the end of 1989 ... the last new vinyl album i ever got was Debbie's Def Dumb & Blonde in Nov 89. In 1990 i bought a CD player and bought my first CDs ... and i think the first one was the Sundays' Reading Writing and Arithmetic (I loved the song Here's Where the Story Ends, and didnt know how else I'd be able to own it without going to CDs!). I immediately bought all 6 Blondie studio albums on CD, but thought i wouldnt necessarily replace my vinyl collection with CDs. Boy, was I wrong.

I wish i had a way to convert vinyl to CD. I mean, is the Wide Boy Awake mini-album ever gonna come out on CD? I doubt it. Or synthpop albums by the Units, or the Vels?? Ah well.

Cant wait for the Yaz show next week. Euro friends have told me great things about the tour.

Anonymous said...

My last vinyl was The Smiths "The Queen Is Dead." After that I waited years to change my world to CD because I'm cheap.