Why We Love Listening to Vinyl
Vinyl records are the last holdout of the physical (i.e. non-virtual) music market. They’ve outlasted CDs, cassette tapes, MiniDiscs, 8-tracks, and every other experimental music playback medium on the market—and they’ve been around longer than all of those media combined.
So what makes vinyl so special? Why do we return to this simple, analogue music technology time and time again despite having access to millions of streaming songs at our fingertips? The simple answer to why we love listening to vinyl is that vinyl is more than a music technology. It’s an experience. The vinyl record sound is just the beginning.
We Love Shopping for Vinyl Records
The streaming generation has proven to be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it’s easier and more affordable than ever to listen to more music than we could ever imagine. On the other hand, this convenience has robbed us of the classic time-honored experience of strolling through record stores, sifting through stacks of music, and zeroing in on that one perfect find.
Gen-Z’ers will never know the simple joy of spending hours wandering from aisle to aisle in the local Tower Records or Virgin Megastore, but the vinyl renaissance allows us to recapture a glimmer of that experience. In many ways, vinyl is keeping record stores alive. We can lose ourselves amid the smell of vinyl and the stacks of discs as we venture in search of that one missing Fleetwood Mac record or that rare Beatles butcher cover. It’s just like old times.
We Love Collecting Vinyl Records
Once again, the streaming generation sacrifices the thrill of the hunt in favor of on-demand convenience. But there’s still something exciting about building a physical collection. If you’re the world’s biggest 2Pac fan and you discover that his iconic All Eyez on Me has been reissued on vinyl, you can’t open your wallet fast enough. Maybe you’ll spin the record, or maybe you’ll hang it on the wall. The important thing is just having it in your possession.
The exciting thing about collecting vinyl is that your collection is constantly growing. What starts off as a humble stack of thrift-store selections ultimately grows into a massive, genre-transcending assortment of music for every occasion. There’s real pride in that.
We Love Organizing Our Vinyl Records
Once you have your growing collection in hand, you want to organize it. There’s something therapeutic about laying a few dozen records on the bed and sorting them according to title, artist, genre, or even mood.
You can build your own vinyl displays out of shipping pallets, or you can purchase an elaborate vinyl cabinet to bring the room together. Perhaps you’ll even reorganize your vinyl every few months to fit your mood at the time. As you look through each record, you’ll find selections you can’t even remember buying, and you might just give them a spin.
We Love Listening to Vinyl Records
Of course, the best thing about vinyl is the listening experience. There’s a reason why vinyl has outlasted every other music medium, and that’s because it sounds the best. From the crackling of the needle to the uninhibited instrumentation echoing through the room, vinyl creates an experience that can’t be replicated anywhere else.
For the long-time music aficionado, listening to vinyl can evoke a sense of nostalgia, whisking them back to a simpler time when vinyl was the dominant music medium. For the younger listener, it allows for a multidimensional listening experience that just isn’t possible with a compressed audio file.
We Love Cleaning Our Vinyl Records
Much like organizing and listening to vinyl, there’s something therapeutic about cleaning and restoring it. Whether you just found an exciting rarity at your local Salvation Army or you’re just looking to spruce up a disc that’s been lying on your bedroom shelf for a while, you can achieve a tremendous sense of accomplishment and satisfaction by removing the dirt and dust.
A kit like the Record Friend vinyl record cleaner makes it easy. Just place your records, one at a time, into the vinyl sink, and apply the cleaning fluid one by one. Then, dry the records 10 at a time on the drying rack. If you do this on a regular basis, you can keep your vinyl spinning like new and even preserve it for future generations.
We Love Showcasing Our Vinyl Records
Vinyl records have always been popular as wall art, but the last few years have given us a full-fledged vinyl art revolution. You can even purchase frames for your records or create elaborate murals that take up your entire wall.
There’s no wrong way to showcase your vinyl records to the world. Present them in a way that highlights your unique tastes and style, and create displays that turn heads for all the right reasons. Even if you use vinyl records exclusively for display purposes (while listening to music via other media), you’ll have a collection you can be proud of.
What do you love best about listening to vinyl? Is it the vinyl record sound? The overall ritual? Let us know!
