Records as a child
Records have been played in our house for as long as I can remember playing music. My first record player was given to me by an Aunt when I was barely 7 years old, I know this as I was also given Madonna’s Dress You Up and Wham’s I’m Your Man as my starter records, tunes eh?
Records as a teen
My mum’s extensive Beatles LP collection ignited my love with the fab four, whereas my dad had the Stones and The Who. Many a teenage angst night was spent with the records played at full volume as I thrashed a sports car around on my Amiga 500.
However my vinyl playing days came to an abrupt end in my late teens. Being a student away from home, I had to leave behind the stacking Hifi and embrace the portable CD player. But I’ve always owned and bought records, even when I couldn’t play them due to my parents deposing of my cumbersome system in my absence.
Although I’ve not played records that I owned for a long time, I’ve never let them go. Not like many other aspects of my childhood including an impressive collection of Star Wars toys.
I’ve even purchased vinyl that I couldn’t play, mostly the exclusive limited edition Vinyl releases Oasis persuaded me to buy, along an odd missing Beatles album an even an add picture disc that I believed would impress the ladies during my student days…they didn’t!
3 versions of the same Album from Oasis – Impressive marketing
A photo posted by VinylisCool (@vinyliscool) on
Records as an Adult
Around 4 years ago my love for Vinyl was reignited. My then girlfriend, now wife, bought me a modern ‘retro looking’ (ironic) record player with built in speakers, CD player and radio, I was hooked once more.
I loved it immediately and couldn’t wait to dust off the old records and get them played. Once I’d been to my parents and retrieved them from the attic.
My record player playing some Stone Roses
As my love for vinyl continued to grow I started replacing cd’s I’d owned with records. I posted my hobby via Instagram, Pinterest and others and the more I posted the more I researched. The more I researched the more I learned that my lovely record player wasn’t doing my records a whole lot of good. In fact, some bloggers and vinyl enthusiasts were happy to post that my record player was very likely killing my vinyl.
So, reluctantly I played my lovely records less and started to investigate a replacement record player.