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Topic: What Did You Buy Today (And Why)?

30th Jul 2014, 9:20 PM
	Magic Marmalade If you're not lost... It's not an adventure! Member since Jun 2014 3765 Points Moderator	I'm SOOOOooooooooooooooooo Happy! ...Honestly, I feel almost, well... stoned. The last few hours have been like some beautiful dream... or wait, no, the past twenty years have been the dream, and it feels like I've just woken up again. Today I heard music for the first time in a very long while, despite having listened to it throughout that time... After cleaning up my new record player, and messing around with the connection configuration on the back of my other kit for an hour or so, I ventured toward the vinyl. I kept telling myself it was only going to be a let down, and a combination of my rose tinted recollections of vinyl, and all the hype of the current resurgence of interest which had conspired to pull a fast one on me. Would the stylus be OK?... What if something else was wrong inside it? I grabbed a fistful of 45s, and cleaned em up, ready for playing... I chose a couple of dodgy copies of good songs, which looked like they'd give me all kinds of jip to play, and the Honour of first play went to Ray Charles: You Don't Know Me. At the risk of sounding like a hyperbolic teenager (If I don't already!)... OH MY FECKIN' GOD!!! After a fondly remembered crackle, hiss, and pop, it settled down to a gentle background hiss... then the song began... The room swelled with ripples of joy and blooms of warm and hazy happiness as Ray Charles' voice rose out of, what I could not believe, was my stereo. The stylus moved lightly over the record, without one disturbance, even though to look at, I'd thought I was in for the Remix! Still grinning at the arm as it glided back to base, I played Ella Fitzgerald with the same result. I then tried The Beatles' From Me To You, See Emily Play (both only slightly less dubious looking copies than those that preceded them, and it just got better and better... The Stylus is absolutely fine! After a couple more Hendrix, and Fleetwood Mac's Man Of the World, Trust had been established between me and the unit, so I decided to give Baker Street a go ( My Favourite), a mint copy, and it was just magic! (I bloody knew they'd buggered about with the production on CD versions of this... not just my hazy memory... Baker Street is recorded at a Faster Tempo on the original vinyl single, has more percussion, the vocal, sax, and guitar solo are all more “In-the-Mic”, and not washed away into the backing track). It was then I Eyed My Albums like some kind of Bond Villain rubbing his hands and chuckling. I am pleased to report that I gave the neighbours a full dose of The Drifters (Hot summer day... Under The Boardwalk... Sooper!), The Beatles Blue Album, and then.... and then...... ….I spied a familiar twelve inch square of blackness among my collection, struck through with a single line of white, refracting through a prism to be dispersed in rainbow. Dark Side Of The Moon. I have a pristine 1979 copy of this on vinyl (OK, not a first issue, but a nice thick lump of shiny vinyl, none the less)... I have been listening to this fairly regularly for the last few years on an assortment of copies of different versions on CD... If you don't believe the difference vinyl makes, you have to try this Album... the daddy of vinyl albums. Suddenly all the CD versions of this seem anal, precise, and uptight somehow... It was like someone opened a window in this album, and let some air into it... It has real presence, even in the quiet moments (the heartbeat), weight, punch and the genuine effortless power I remembered. The Drums at the beginning of Time (ha ha), just after the clock alarms are worth the price of admission by themselves, but after Great Gig In The Sky, I was knocked flat! At the end of side two I tried Wish You Were Here, before giving the neighbours a rest. I haven't stopped grinning all day. … If I'd have known such happiness could be bought for just 4 Pounds, I wouldn't have done all those drugs over the years! (From the outset, I'd intended to copy all my vinyl, then sell most of it... but now I See they are my precioussssssss, looks like I'm hooked again......... Bugger.)