The Value of Vinyl (Get Yours Now!)
I'm selling vinyls. Pay whatever you want for 'em because everyone should have a music collection.
I was born right on the dividing line between the future and the past. I’m at that perfect age, born in 1990 (same year as the WorldWideWeb!), to be on the frontlines of all these changes in music listening technology.
I remember waiting on the radio to play that one song so you could record it on your cassette player — and then I remember getting that big boombox with the two cassette players so you could record songs from one cassette to another.
My first CD was Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise (RIP). A few year’s later I made my first internet purchase, from a funny online bookstore called “Amazon,” of the radio edit of Nelly’s Country Grammar1. I was that kid with the early CD-burner who’d charge you $10 to find all your favorite songs on Napster and burn you a mix. I had a big binder full of CDs, half of ‘em bought at The Wiz or BestBuy, the other half found one song at a time on the internet and burned in the appropriate order, because even at 11 I dug full albums.
When Napster got shutdown, I switched to Kazaa, then LimeWire, then I just started torrenting artists’ whole discographies. I still bought albums off iTunes from the artists I loved and wanted to support, but I also prided myself on having 10, 20, 30 thousand songs in my iTunes library…and that shit did not come one $0.99 song at a time.
Music is something we experience, but music is also a part of how we form our identities. That’s why emo kids wore black t-shirts with “Taking Back Sunday” written on ‘em.
But then, Spotify happened. I remember hearing about Spotify. I remember downloading it and not really knowing what to do. Eventually it wound up on my phone, in my car, on all of my devices. And somewhere along the way, without any of us noticing it, something incredibly important was lost: I no longer had a music collection.
I had no library, no central repository, nothing to show off or feel proud of. I had a few playlists and whatever song was stuck in my head. The infinity of it all made me keep going back to the same things — or, worse, to “Algorithmic Curation.”
Until I went back in time. My parents started cleaning out some closets, and, well they had all these records they didn’t use anymore — and did I want them?
Did I want a first pressing of The Beatle’s Revolver? Of Rumours? Of Tapestry and The Royal Scam and Court And Spark and Talking Book?! Ummm…I mean, yeah. I’ll take ‘em.
That’s when I got a record player. And that’s when I started my collection again.
That’s also why I printed records and want you to have one in your collection. And that’s why I’m letting you pay whatever you want for ‘em. Because being in your collection, that’s all I really care about.
You do not need me to tell you that vinyl sounds better. It does. But we’ll leave it there. What I’m here to tell you is that it feels really damn good to have a collection of music again — to have a big bookcase full of records, big, tangible pieces of art that you (or your house guest…) can scroll through, admire, pick up and discover.
And I’m here to tell you about the art, how it ain’t just a 200 pixel thumbnail in a little square on your screen. I’d stared at that thumbnail of Bon Iver’s 22 A Million for a whole lot of time, but when that ALBUM ART showed up in my hands, it finally made sense: the symbology, the language, not to mention the words that came printed in a beautiful insert full of poetry and presentation.
Music is something we experience, but music is also a part of how we form our identities. That’s why emo kids wore black t-shirts with “Taking Back Sunday” written on ‘em. It’s why streetwear (aka “hip hop fashion”) is as important now as Haute Couture. It’s why I at age 27 I wore right through the armpits of my white Phoebe Bridgers t-shirt.2
That’s also why I printed records and want you to have one in your collection. And that’s why I’m letting you pay whatever you want for ‘em. Because being in your collection, that’s all I really care about. Capitalism be damned.
We’ve only got about 100 left3, so they are LIMITED edish, baby. Get yourself a little piece of me — and when It arrives (be patient...I'm also the "Logistics Department"), snap a little pick of it sitting in your collection. That'll make this all worth it.
-David
The sound effects that blurred out the curse words were incredible. I didn’t know what an “L in the back of a Benzieeee” meant, but the loud sound of a dude inhaling a blunt gave me a good idea.
I wanted everyone to know how SAD I was!
The process of printing these suckers was long and dreary, and I’ll spare you all the details, but we only got about half of what we ordered about a year after we ordered ‘em. #supplychain