Celebrating vinyl records

There seems to be a commemorative day for everything, and I discovered that today (April 20) is National Vinyl Record Day – in Brazil!

It made me laugh that there should be a day to celebrate records, but it inspired me to get out my records for a nostalgic trip down memory lane and what a lot of memories I have associated with my records.

As children, my sisters and I had a red box record player on which we listened to stories and songs narrated in Brazilian, which consequently led to us imitating the accent and being entertained for hours.

I still have my full collection of records that have followed me around since I bought my first single in 1978. It was John Travolta singing ‘Sandy’ from the movie ‘Grease’. I drove my family mad playing it repeatedly and, worst still, singing along, especially as I cannot sing in tune at all.

My records have seen me through the normal emotional upheavals of life. Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb accompanied me with ‘Woman in Love’ when I first fell in love aged 16 and, even today, I cannot listen to Rod Stewart without being taken right back to my university days and the devastating feelings of having my young heart broken. Rod kept me company as I cried my eyes out.

I shaped up with Olympic gymnast Suzanne Dando and danced along with Boy George’s ‘Karma Chameleon’. Why I kept the price stickers on the albums is beyond me but just look at the mark downs!

Although the covers are worn, it is amazing that my records have survived, and I can still listen to them today as I also have a couple of record players. I used to like to go to HMV on Oxford Street in London or flick through the albums in the market stalls, and I was delighted to discover, a couple of years ago, small record shops in Lisbon, which were like ones from back in the day.

When Sony first launched the compact disc in 1982, it was the beginning of the end of vinyl records as these durable plastic discs whose sound was encoded with laser technology allowed more music to come in a smaller package.

I am astonished that records have made a comeback, and, in fact, vinyl sales have been surpassing the sale of CDs in recent years. More surprising is that records are not being bought by nostalgic older people like me, but by the younger generations. Long-forgotten artists will no doubt be getting a revival as new generations raid their parents’ record collections.

Did you know that the first invented recording device was the phonautograph patented by Frenchman Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville in 1857? Thomas Edison in 1877 further developed the phonograph to record and replay sound, but it was German-American Emile Berliner who patented the gramophone and invented the gramophone records in 1887.

Whilst early ‘records’ had been made from zinc and glass, the heavy 78 rotations per minute (rpm) gramophone records, which could only hold three to five minutes of music, were made of shellac, a resin secreted by female lac bugs on trees in the forests of India and Thailand – I had no idea!

This resin was also used to produce explosives, therefore, during WWII, demand for shellac was so high that people were asked to surrender their records to the war effort. After the war, Hungarian-born electrical engineer Peter Goldmark, whilst working for Columbia Records, created the first 33 rpm long playing record (LP) out of the much lighter polyvinyl chloride. These still have 22.5 minutes of music on each side and produced a better sound quality.

Then, along came the faster single 45 rpm records, but it was only in the 1960s that the stereophonic LP took over the monophonic records. I coveted my sister’s record player with incorporated cassette player in the 1980s!

In the 1980s, the digital era began with the compact discs, then came the MP3s and eventually streaming took over. Now, with mobile phones, everyone has music at their fingertips to listen anywhere and everywhere.

It was in the early 2000s that select vinyls started to appear for sale, aimed at a specialised audience, and now they are taking over again.

Listening to a record is very different to just listening to music on a telephone. There is a ritual involved. First, we flip through the records to choose one to suit our mood. Once selected, we take the time to look at the sleeve cover which often has beautiful art on it. Next, carefully taking out the record so as not to scratch it, blowing off the inevitable dust and holding it to see if there are any scratches. Finally, and usually with a shaky hand, carefully placing the stylus needle on the first groove and hearing the crackles as the music begins.

Many people believe that the analogue music sound is far superior to the digital audio, including my musician husband, but I do not quite understand how listening to a load of crackling with the music is better! However, I am told that analogue music has more depth, more life and soul and the whole process of putting on a record physically involves the listener in the musical experience.

With a record you are more likely to sit and relax and listen to a whole album rather than just having it on as background music.

However, record albums were not just about the music. Some were works of art, and if you were lucky enough to acquire a record that was made out of blue, yellow or red vinyl, it was exciting to have something different. Some record covers became iconic, such as The Beatles’ ‘Abbey Road’, which transformed a simple zebra crossing into a must-visit destination as fans gleefully take pictures of themselves copying The Beatles walking on the crossing.

Some records are now valued at thousands of euros, so it is worth having a look through your collection!

Do you remember that disappointing moment when listening to a record and finding that the stylus needle gets stuck in a scratch, causing the same notes or words to be repeated irritatingly over and over again and knowing that you can never listen to that track again as it is damaged forever? I wonder if the forgotten expression “you sound like a broken record” will now also make a comeback with the younger generations!

So now you know!

So now you know!

By Isobel Costa
|| [email protected]

Isobel Costa works full time and lives on a farm with a variety of pet animals! In her spare time, she enjoys photography, researching and writing.