thoughts about vinyl on Record Store Day

Peel famously retorted to someone who complained that a track he was playing had too much surface noise with the reply that “Life has surface noise” and Neil Young similarly refused to record using digital equipment for a very long time. This is without mentioning Jack White issuing singles on his own label as 7” singles, rather than in any other format and the retro love-in for 180g album reissues on vinyl. (The latter costs a fortune by the way, and I think that unless you’ve got high-end equipment to play it on (I haven’t) and very good ears (not me, too much loud music over the last 35 years) then the record companies are selling us the Emperors’ New Clothes). Whilst we may go all misty-eyed about 12” albums and great sleeve art that’s all now been made redundant by the birth of CD and digital formats and we similarly mourn the loss of 7” singles with all their juke box connotations, let’s face it-it was all a pain in the arse. Most of the sleeve art for albums was crap design or sub-Roger Dean hippy stuff and 7 “ singles were always a nuisance to store and find. There was nothing more frustrating than finding your favourite record being so scratched or warped that it was unplayable and not being able to get another copy without spending a lot of money or time. Give me mp3’s any day-I can live without surface noise.