A Late Bloomer’s Vinyl Story
I have never owned a physical music record, be it CD or vinyl. The only physical music medium that ever entered my life was an MP3 player and later an iPod, to which I transferred all the music I bought from an online music store (ahem). I still remember listening to the same couple of tracks every week, over and over again, while doing my rounds as a newspaper boy. Those were the days.
Actually buying full albums on a physical medium like CD or vinyl, which required a separate machine to play them? No, that wasn't me. I am a millennial, and the need for such things seemed beyond me. Leave that for the older generation, I thought. You know, those old people who apparently felt the need for all that seemingly unnecessary work—getting up, picking a record, taking it out of its jacket, putting it on the turntable, activating the device… I already got tired just thinking about it.
But here we are. My first youth lies behind me. I've been to a lot of concerts since then, always looking at the merch stands full of vinyl but never buying anything. As the years passed, the desire for some physical memory of these concerts grew. And while band t-shirts are nice, they don’t carry the same emotional value as the music itself. Clothing wears out over time, but music is everlasting and only becomes better as it ages.
So here I am. A 32-year-old guy who now owns his first turntable and may have acquired a new hobby as a record collector—at least for the records of the shows I've been to. Does that mean I'm officially old now? Yeah, maybe. But certainly wiser and the owner of legendary music.