27

There is a fine line between being cool and being a complete anorak sometimes. This thought crossed my mind at Record Store day the other week. 

Personally my days of buying vinyl are over now but I do enjoy the atmosphere of the day - not to mention the free live music outside Jumbo records. But its amazing to see the number of people queuing outside the shop to get hold of the many limited edition records that were released for the special occasion.

It reminded me of something my friend Michelle said to me. I had been taking the mickey out of her going to watch the snooker. She pointed out that watching snooker was no different to watching football, cricket or rugby league. In each case the spectators are just sitting on their backsides watching somebody else. (She also pointed out that snooker involves mathematics as well but we'll ignore that).

So along similar lines is there anything cooler about buying limited edition vinyl than standing on a railway platform collecting train numbers? 

Luckily Michelle also mentioned that she doesn't read Yorkshire Windbag. So I can categorically state that buying records is cooler than train spotting (and watching football is cooler than watching snooker as well - please nobody tell Michelle I said that though). 

Its funny to see the revival of vinyl. I well remember my rather hopeless battle to stick to vinyl way back in the nineties. I think I finally started buying CDs about the time we bought our first house. So that would be 1995 or 1996.

I had held out much longer than most of my friends though. There was the time when one of the guys at Scorpion Records (in High Wycombe) took the mickey out of me. I wanted the Grant Lee Buffalo album 'Fuzzy'. But it was only available on CD. I held my nerve and eventually it came out on vinyl. But the writing was on the wall. 

I seem to recall my last hurrah was a trip to Berwick Street in London to a shop called Record Collector (its now merged with  Sister Ray that used to be across the road) where I bought 4 albums in one go.

My rebellion against CDs was less to do with sound quality than price and the fact that it seemed quite obviously a ploy by the record companies to make people re-buy all the stuff they already had on vinyl.

If I'm honest with you my favoured format these days is MP3. Yes I know the sound quality isn't as good as vinyl or even CD but frankly I've never been that bothered about pristine sound. All my records were (and still are) scratched to hell and snapped, crackled and popped like a massive bowl of rice crispies. 

Truth be told I've been going to gigs for over 30 years so I'm pretty certain that will have had an adverse impact on my hearing as well.

Like most music formats MP3s have their pluses and their minuses.

On the positive side they are very convenient. For instance I have over 10,000 tracks on my player that I can access instantly. Meaning the days of been stuck with the same tape in my car for months have gone forever. 

When I lived in Wycombe in rented accomodation it was always a bit of a pain moving my record collection around (particularly when I was driving a proper mini). How great would it have been to have them on a player instead (even with the back up on a hard drive).

This brings me to another important point. MP3s are better for the environment. All that plastic and packaging is no more. Not to mention all the fuel used to transport the CDs, albums and tapes. Ok there is still electricity and various hard drives but I reckon its still an improvement.

Finally its great to have all my music in one common format (well ok a fair proportion of its sitting on my CDs and vinyl still. But one day!).

On the downside the convenience of MP3s extends to easily copying them. Meaning its easy to copy your mate's copy. Its hard to think of a solution to this one. Most of the techniques used by the record companies have been far too restrictive and too easy to work round. 

Frankly the only solution is pretty radical. That is to trust the punters and educate them that ripping off the artists is effectively killing the goose that lays the golden egg. It would help if music was priced a little more realistically. As mentioned above there is no packaging required for MP3s and the distribution is a lot cheaper. The days of expensive music videos and big marketing campaigns are also in the past. I bet even the recording of the music is cheaper now that digital techniques are the norm rather than the expensive tapes of old. So why are Apple charging the same for a digital album as HMV are charging for the CD version?

My other bugbear about the digital musical revolution is the way that Apple have somehow managed to pretty much tie up the market. With their ubitiquous players and iTunes site.

Can I recommend that you give iTunes the elbow? As an IT geek I disapprove of the fact that they tie you into their (non MP3) format. Check out Emusic instead. Its much cheaper and although there are limitations - for example it only stocks independent music - there's plenty of stuff on there if you look. Also try and buy stuff direct from the artist so that they get more of the money.

**

While I'm on the line can I tell you a little story about karma as told to me by my friend Chris.

He was at the bar in the Brudenell on Friday night. He'd just got a pint and paid for it. While the barmaid was at the till he took a big swig.

When she came back she noticed that his beer was not the full pint and quickly topped it up for him.

As he walked away from the bar smiling at his good fortune he failed to see a girl walking towards him. Bumped into her and spilt about the same amount of beer he'd just gained.

**

One last thing. My music tip for this week is Nightbeds. Check out a song here. The album is available on Emusic!

Back Issues

Send your comments, articles, insults, poetry, pictures, outpourings of love etc

Click above to go and like this on Facebook

The Credits