By Lewis Hannah
Since the late nineties, with the creation of Napster by Sean Parker, the music industry and how music is listened to has completely flipped on its head. From post World War Two up until the turn of the millennium physical music media, such as vinyl records, compact discs and cassettes were the dominant forms for music consumption. The landscape has completely shifted now. Streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music have become the dominant forces in how music is released, listened to and consumed.
In my lifetime, streaming is what I’ve been used to both growing up and now in my adolescence. So, I wanted to challenge that. For just one weekend. I challenged myself to listen to music primarily through a physical outlet. In my case, it would be a vinyl record player. How would I cope with a much smaller library of songs to listen to?
Issues encountered
First, the record player used is admittedly quite old, about over half a decade, so during the experience, I did encounter some small issues like the record player making audible some scratches. It was nothing major, but there were a few tracks that abruptly skipped, such as Sam Fender’s “Hypersonic Missiles”. Perhaps the vinyl needed cleaning.
The other issue is that my available collection of records was very limited, only about 15-20 albums. They were all records I had a strong liking for, but to say I was short in numbers was an understatement.
The experience, and what I learned
I found the experience positive and flawed, in different ways. Due to the non-portable nature of a record player, if I had to leave my room for whatever reason, be it go make food in the kitchen, or to head to the shops to grab some stuff, I wouldn’t have any music playing in any of those scenarios. As someone who’s often a regular music listener wherever I go, even though this little experiment only lasted a couple of days at most, it was a steadfast change that caught me off guard a few times. Due to the aforementioned issue of having limited vinyl records at my access, what I was able to listen to was a small collection of great material. Thus meant that I couldn’t engage with any new music coming out.
A physical vinyl record, on a non-portable record player
As for the positives, they say the overall experience of listening to music on vinyl is greater/enriched. That, in my opinion, rang true. Whether I was reading a book, playing a videogame, or doing some research and work on my computer, I felt like I was in one of those old rooms with the bright red furniture and calm environment. And there were some records played I hadn’t heard in full on vinyl before, take Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On for instance. Hearing this magnificent record on vinyl was a new experience I somehow hadn’t ticked off. I’m glad I finally have done this.
Overall, it was a nice, refreshing experience to be able to listen to music purely through record players. Unless I had a complete collection of all the music I listened, it would be very hard to make a shift purely to just a record player. Also, my streaming service’s algorithm has been catering to my music listening for a while now, so that makes it even harder. The experiment has, however, encouraged me to listen to more music on a record player.
Interview with music journalist Alex Mcferren, on my weekend of physical media only.
