Records, Again?

 Just before Christmas we took our daughter to see one of her favourite bands perform. On the way out of the show, on impulse, she bought herself their new album on vinyl. As we walked back to the car she wrestled with some buyer's remorse mainly because we didn't actually own a record player, but that seemed like an easily solvable problem. We did talk about one of the biggest takeaways from the past two years, for me personally anyway, and that was the gift of slowing things down. As such, we invested in things and practices that take more time. Like the fire bowl, that encourages lots of backyard sitting and chatting, the charcoal barbecue that requires patience and babysitting, the sourdough starter that needs lots of attention and all of those things have led to some of my favourite moments over the past two years. Records I figured could be the same. 

I've already mentioned that we had started listening to a family curated playlist during dinner and we were really loving the sing-a-longs and conversations that had come along with that, so this seemed like an even more deliberate off-shoot of that. I told my daughter that playing a record required a bit more work than hitting shuffle on your phone. We had borrowed a suitcase player from a friend and playing a record required getting it out and setting it up, but all the other slower deliberate stuff we had been doing only served to enhance the experience and enjoyment so why not continue making time for the slow stuff? As our Sunday night dinners had evolved into mini-events, we added playing her record to the list.

First, I have to admit, it's a pretty great album, so that is a big plus, but the conversations that came out of it have been pretty great too. Like, what if you only like one song on an album? Tough, you had to buy the whole thing back in the day, that's what made one where every track was killer so special. So then we talked about what albums her Dad and I thought were that special type of unicorn. For me it's Gordon by the Barenaked Ladies, Fully Completely by The Tragically Hip, You Don't Mess Around With Jim by Jim Croce, just to name a couple. And sure you can listen a complete album on your favourite streaming service too, but we don't typically do that so this has been fun because in the time since our daughter impulse bought that record we've added a handful more albums to the collection (as a GenX type person, can we please talk about how many times we have purchased our music collections and on how many platforms, each time thinking it will be the last time?) and bought a nice mid range turntable that has it's own personal set up space and makes easy to alternate between albums and the old streaming service playlist any day of the week.