Why I Buy Second-Hand Vinyl Records

My apologies. This originally had my commentary but was blocked by YouTube due to the album "Thick as a Brick" playing in the background. So I repurposed it as an Instagram reel with ninety seconds of the music that got it blocked.

You can see the Motown Chartbusters Volume 7 One-Armed Bandit/Slot Machine cover which is the reason I am writing this. It is similar to the Led Zeppelin III cover, which is a lot more expensive than the fiver this one cost me.

Introduction

I find it a little sad when you ask people what kind of music they like and they reply, "Spotify". I remember an advertisement for a streaming service called Deezer, and the subject said, "I don't have to think what to play next, Deezer does that for me".

If no new music were ever produced, it would not matter to the streaming services. They already have far more than they need.

So, Why Do I Buy Second-Hand Vinyl?

This was inspired by a record I bought today, although I have covered this before in this piece:

Also, this piece was an observation on rebuilding my vinyl collection that I had as a teenager, although I have a lot more vinyl now than I had as a teenager:

While I listen to music on my phone (MP3 from downloads and CD rips) to listen to when I am travelling, and I recently started to do this with my Kindle, although I need to download music to my Kindle, but although I have thousands of songs I have bought from Amazon, Amazon Music just expects me to use its channels as a playlist. I want to choose what I am listening to. I have just found that I can download it.

These days, the most interesting things that artists and record companies do is put out vinyl on coloured, splattered, or picture-disc vinyl, and that is it.

Last year, I found this incredible album art from the Welsh band Man, which used an origami expert to create the cover.

Then there is the Vertigo Swirl, possibly the most enigmatic label design ever, and I did manage to find a CD that used it, but to see it at its most impressive, you need to see it on a vinyl LP.

The most important thing is always the music, but both vinyl and CD presentation can greatly enhance that. Edward II's "Manchester's Improving Daily" and Lift To Experience's "The Texas Jerusalem Crossroad" are two fine examples of great CD presentation.

However, this is about me buying second-hand vinyl, and while I keep saying I have more than I need, the "Motown Chartbusters Volume 7" shows that I can always find something new to add to my collection.

While I like the convenience of listening to music on the move, the sound I get out of my record player is still amazing. My son-in-law Mark told me not to buy a record player made after 1990, as that is when they started building in obsolescence. My is a 1970's model that you can see here:

And it came from RPM in Newcastle, where you can see lots of great vintage record players. I also get a lot of second-hand vinyl there.

Conclusion

No doubt I will keep finding things that I want and enjoying listening to them, but they need to be something special, and it's not often I find that from a new record. The last one was this Liam Gallagher & John Squire Limited Edition Picture Disc On Zoetrope Vinyl, which looks good and is a great album (though I'm not an Oasis fan).

Thank you for reading.