Heartbeat or vinyl?
That big black record, which unfortunately majority of us – the youngsters – knows only from films or family stories. However, we owe it the whole music of XX century in general. This ancestor of iTunes helped countless amount of now-legendary artists to reach highly desired fame. Finally, the vinyls are simply the basics of music and its undeniable quintessence!
The vinyls, also called as Long Plays (LPs) or just analogs were then incredibly common. They are the purest music ever recorded – without any additions, unnecessary electronic vibes – showing the music as it was supposed to be and as the artists wanted it to be. Their history begins in the late 50s and then the music obsession starts as well. Thanks to that easily available records, young and unknown artists were about to change the world of music. From blues and jazz artists to rythm&blues bands or rock n roll icons like Elvis Presley, The Beatles or The Rolling Stones, to the whole 70s, for instance Pink Floyd or later punk bands as Sex Pistols or Ramones. The popularity of vinyls was such a long period because of its characterstics. Their wonderful quality and world wide availability caused increase of gramophone’s popularity, making for it a place in houses of many countries, as well as for impressive collections of vinyls in each. The golden age of analogs was drastically cut by compact records – CDs during the 80s. The world once again was amused, this time with revolutionary small and practically one-sided records. Although the admirers of vinyls still remember them, the massive production of CDs changed the music business forever.
When nothing worse could have happen to vinyls, the XXI century improved that CDs are also in danger of crisis, obviously because of Internet, free downloading or YouTube. Luckily, there is still quite a big group of active vinyl lovers who can’t imagine a day without it.
Recently the vinyls have returned slowly to their first position. The wider circle of vinyl fans gets, the more often you can feel increasing need for real, honest music. The solution are vinyls, which are straightly connected with heartbeat of all true music’s lovers. That kind of news – the great comeback of black records – would be highly expected as back in the 60s or 70s listening to them was part of daily habits. Nowadays it’s easier for us to choose which one we prefer, when the music surrounds us all the time. It is reported that more and more people simply wait for vinyls to fully come back.
Finding good prize and quality vinyl is certainly a hard challenge, though it’s not impossible. Depending on country, the vinyl’s industry is still half asleep. The thing is to know where to look for – new or old – good quality black record always makes me smile. Time spent on looking for them is – at least for me – not only not wasted, but also worth it. Sound of iPods’ grandparents is so much different and I’m not sure if anyone or anything can persuade me Internet playlists, while my motto became ‘’the day without vinyl is the day wasted”, no matter my nonconformistic nature.