Revamping My Teenage Record Collection

Introduction

I was born in 1957 and as a teenager built up a vinyl and cassette collection. I knew that I had to move to CD when my daughter Juliet showed me what she could to a vinyl record with the player needle, though not a dangerous as what Kirsty did with metal magazine separators and a mains plug.

This is my piece on music media history:

In the new millennium, many records I wanted were not available digitally so I had to buy them on vinyl and had a deck to rip them to MP3 and then to CD but it was a hassle.

I didn't realise but this was the start of my current vinyl collection rebuild.

And Then What?

As my vinyl collection grew I picked up a GPO record player which was OK and also allowed ripping of vinyl to MP3.

I then started buying mainly second-hand vinyl and shared some of the records on Instagram and Facebook. My friend Marek berated me and talked me into buying a beautiful reconditioned record player from his RPM shop in Newcastle and I have not looked back since then and my vinyl collection is still growing, and I even have three cassettes.

One of my problems with modern vinyl releases is that they think that coloured vinyl or a picture disc makes them something special, but barring the hologram (see "Star Wars on my RPM player) zoetropic releases, most of them are not incredibly interesting. This Grateful Dead "Dancing Bears" one is so cute to the music of "China Cat Sunflower"

My collection is made up mainly of albums and singles where the presentation is part of the whole package and I have done a couple of stories about how the music media is presented to us.

So I thought I would add a short playlist with a note about the album that it came from and why it is special.

Jethro Tull - "Thick As A Brick"

This album came in a broadsheet newspaper which was written by the band and took longer to write than the album did to record. I have this on vinyl with the newspaper and on DVD which allows you to read the newspaper on your TV as the album plays. The album was a single forty-minute piece, split for vinyl and the band has provided the opening twenty minutes on this YouTube selection.

Hawkwind - "Master Of The Universe" from "In Search Of Space"

This is possibly one of the most beautifully complex album covers that you will ever see, designed by Barney Bubbles and containing a mad psychedelic booklet telling the story of what happened on this fateful space journey. If you want a PDF copy of the booklet contact me). I love the music and as a teenager the space rock genre was a winner for me.

Jon Anderson - "Flight Of The Moorglade" from "Olias of Sunhillow"

I believe, inspired by Roger Dean's artwork for "Fragile" by Yes. This is a beautiful song from a beautiful album msucially and with amazing artwork and the video is inspired by the album art.

The video has the full album but I have started it when my favourite song comes in.

Pink Floyd - "Time" from "Dark Side Of The Moon"

I was a little disappointed when "Dark Side Of The Moon" came out, but it came with stickers and posters and the reissue has all that included. A perfect reproduction. Over the years I have come to love the album, and "Time" is my favourite song on the album, though I know others will disagree with me, but that is fine because it is full of great songs.

Thank you so much for reading and hope you have enjoyed the things I have shared with you.