33 1/3

Encouraging news: LP (long playing) records are making a comeback. It's about time that something I completely understand is making a return. Being a child of the 60's and 70's (from the last century) music was an important part of my life (disco sucks). And the main way we had for connecting with music was records. It was such a simple concept too. Buy the music and you get a whole package. You got large artwork that you could see. You often got lyrics so you could figure out what was being sung. Sometimes you even got bonuses. Like Alice Coopers' Schools Out. It came with pink panties around the record. Or the Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers had a real working zipper on the front cover. Sometimes you got large booklets inside that had photographs and articles about the artist. Or maybe some post cards like inside Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here album. When you wanted to listen you just turned on the record player (turntable for you aficionados) put the little needle in a groove and your off to glorious sounds. There was even a way to go straight to the song you wanted: Pick up needle put it on the grooves to song you want to hear. Of course there were negatives. If you wanted a new record you had to go to someplace called a store. If you wanted a lot of choices you had to go to a record store. Living in California I had my favorite places to buy my records: Licorice Pizza, Tower Records, Leo's Stereo. All gone now. All torn down or turned into sushi counters. Back then the enemy of the record was called a scratch (not scratching) this would cause pops and sizzles to come over your speakers and sometimes cause the record to repeat at the same spot at the same spot at the same spot. It would continue until you got up and moved the needle. This was a small price to pay for the sound you would hear. I'm not sure what the most accurate way is to playback music analog or digital, I just know how pure and clear a brand new record used to sound. Now it's bits of information that some type of computer processer must put back together to hear. Digital feels like it's missing some soul or heart that came with every record. I don't think they've come up with a program yet that can replace that feeling. And now with sites like ITunes and Rhapsody you don't even need to have something physical that you can hold in your hands to buy music. Now when you buy your music over the Internet all you get is bits of information sent to you at the speed of light. Well maybe that's easier than getting on your ten speed and riding downtown to flip through hundreds of records while the store speakers play the latest greatest records just out. Nothing will ever feel the same. Now turn that damn noise you call music down or I'll hide your iPod.