Vinyl Crisis? Not anymore :)

 

This guy showed up today! ^_^

I remember back when I was much younger, even before I owned my first walkman, my grandfather putting on 12" LPs to enjoy what he called "the good music before all this BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!". Apparently, I used to mess with his records a lot because I still have a scar on the big toe of my right foot where Bob Marley's Legend vinyl fell on my toe when I was very young...I was holding the sleeve upside down. 

Recently I have found it quite hard to find certain pieces of music on CD or digitally. This happens mostly when I'm looking for a specific recording of a classical piece (particular maestro conducting a particular orchestra) and usually, as luck would have it, I can find it online on vinyl. Well, I shall suffer no longer. The good thing is that this turntable comes with a USB connection to so that you can digitize your vinyls. It plays 33s and 45s and the software has the ability to record 78s. Now, everything is fair game.

Brooklyn Funk Essentials - Vinyl Crisis

"Ev'ry time I hear the heartless sound that has no groove I miss the way you lay on my turntable and move...your flat belly 'gainst the taut tip of my stylus."

In anticipation of the arrival of my new toy, I purchased Charles Mingus' Pithecanthropus Erectus (the "Jackie McLean" Mingus days) online but it has not yet arrived. I bought the "180 gram audiophile virgin vinyl" copy. I'm far from an audiophile, and I wasn't sure what all that entirely meant but I looked it up before purchase (the internet is a beautiful thing) and decided I would give it a go. I also found a vinyl store with an extensive jazz collection about 10 minutes drive from my house so I will be dropping in there very soon to rifle through their jazz sax collection...Hank Mobley, Jackie McLean, Sonny Rollins, Cannonball Adderley.

So, is it just me or is there a general resurgence in interest in vinyl? Well, last month the Nielsen report on music indicated a 37% increase in vinyl sales over last year...for the first quarter of 2011 alone. Whatever the reason, maybe genuine interest, frustration over not being able to find digitized copies of certain music, an attempt to resurrect an old vinyl collection, or just the Rise of the Audiophile, "Black Plastic Magic" is getting a lot more attention these days.