A few years ago I found a record player on the street. I took it home and, after a while of it getting in the way, it ended up in storage under the sofa, forgotten. A bit over three years ago I finally decided to get it out and make it work.
I took it to pieces, more out of curiousity than any real need, although there were a few things wrong. It needed a new plug, a few wires were a bit loose and the stylus needed replacing. The most fiddly bit was replacing the worn v-blocks with screw heads (as suggested on a forum) and weighting the arm correctly. Then all I needed was some records!
Luckily quite a few family members have old records they no longer use, and have passed some on to me. From my mum I've got some 70s rock/pop albums, my grandparents gave me some old jazz and classical stuff, and my uncles passed on some of their reggae and electronic records. Combine that with a couple of birthday presents and now I have ~80 albums :-)
The record player really has changed the way I listen to music. Before I would have loads of random tracks chucked into a playlist on Spotify, whereas now I mostly listen to full albums from start to finish. Crafted playlists/mixtapes are good, but I think you get more out of the music listening to it as the artist envisioned it. Some albums just make so much sense as a whole that it's almost a shame to listen to the tracks individually.
I like the physicality of the media too, and the kind of ritual involved. Getting a record out of the sleeve, wiping it, lowering the needle, 20 minutes later getting up to flip it over. The grooved discs of vinyl are awe inspiring, I think because the (relative) simplicity of the system allows you to see just how complicated how complicated it is.
Some photos:
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Callum Brown, 2020-12-30
Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
