My Vinyl Record Problem

I had been contemplating getting a record player for a while now, and on my birthday my buddy actually bought me one. This was very unexpected and very much appreciated. Believe me, I have thanked him many, many times to this point. Let’s discuss.

When I first got the record player my parents had given me three records that they didn't play anymore. They have given away most of their records because they no longer own a player. I played these three pretty immediately because I was psyched about my new gift. Then about a week later I went out with my dad and my buddy that bought me the player to go record shopping. This was great. I found three albums that I wanted to try out on the player, they weren't all that expensive, and when I got home all three got played. I also bought my wife a Fleetwood Mac album because that is probably her favorite band. Then I took a break from shopping for albums because the holidays were fast approaching. I got a few more albums for Xmas and ever since then my record buying has become a minor problem.

I was worried this was going to happen. Having a record player is wonderful because it means I have gotten back to listening to music daily. I was mainly listening to podcasts for a good long while. I still prefer podcasts when I run and when I do errands. But at home I have gotten back into strictly listening to albums when I do housework or any other chores that need to be done. This morning, after grocery shopping, I put on a record and did all my prep work for the week as far as food stuff goes. I chose to listen to "Good Kid M.A.A.D City", and having that playing in the background on my record player was amazing. When I play video games at home I have the record player going. My kids went with me to the record store over the weekend and each got to pick an album to have, and we have listened to them multiple times already, especially my daughter who was literally hugging her album, "Life of a Showgirl" after we brought it home. The record player was great simply because it has reopened my love for listening to music while hanging around the house.

But, the downside, as I mentioned a minute ago, the purchasing of records is going to become a problem. I can already tell. This was the main reason why I was so hesitant to get a record player. I was the last of my brothers to get one. All of my close friends have players in their homes. I would go to their houses and look and pour over each record they had and think to myself that it was time to get one. I just never went through with it. Now that I have one though, I'm fully back in on getting albums. As a teenager and early 20 year old I bought countless CD's. you can ask RD. He used to make fun of the size of my CD books, and those bad boys were totally filled up. I fear I may be doing that with records already. My wife got me a record holder for Xmas, and that is already half full. I mentioned my kids got records over the weekend, well, I bought three for myself on that same trip. I grabbed "Good Kid M.A.A.D City", "Midnight Marauders" and "Stop Making Sense". When we went to check out the total was much more than I had anticipated spending. I went to a local store about a week ago and easily blew about ninety dollars on three records.

I have been making lists of what I want to get next. My grand idea when I first started to collect was that I would only buy records I wanted for the album artwork. That was always a big selling point for me with CD's. I loved the artwork, especially the artwork in late 90's, early 2000's hip hop records. The more boisterous the better I thought. But now I'm simply buying albums because I just want to hear them on a record player. For example, "Stop Making Sense", the version I got, is just black and white with some writing on it. There's nothing too special about it. But I do like the simplicity of it. A few records I have, "Chromakopia" for example, have very cool artwork and cool inserts, but I truly love that album and wanted to hear it on a different player. "Igor" is very simplistic in its packaging. I try to tell myself that I'm going to buy the most basic record because I just want them for the music now, but even the most basic album costs anywhere from twenty two to fifty bucks. I got "Getting Killed" for twenty four dollars and I felt like I got an excellent deal. I need to pace myself because this will only get worse before it gets better.

Damn it I'm thrilled that I have a record player and I feel like a kid again when I go shopping for new albums. I'm not much of a looker when I go to stores. I want to be as efficient as possible. But if you put me in a record store, filled to the brim with music, I could shop for hours and be very, very happy. But I will also spend too much money and feel bad about it afterward. I hope this doesn't get too out of hand too fast, but at the rate I'm going right now that seems to be the case. Oh well, I guess the best thing to do now is buy more storage for the inevitable influx of new records coming my way. This is a good problem to have I suppose. 

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

Come and support Ty and the podcast on Patreon.

Follow Ty on instagram.

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.