I can just remember when 45rpm and 33rpm vinyl records replaced the old, heavy and frighteningly fast 78s. I still have my collection of vinyl records but they are consigned to the basement and will probably never get played again. It all seems so much trouble now, to find the record, to take it from its sleeve, dust it, place it on the turntable, clean the stylus, place the stylus onto the run in groove and listen to the clicks and pops before the music begins and more clicks, pops and even jumps during playback.
Vinyl is making a comeback and there are people out there collecting the half century old records that I grew up with. I am pretty sure that mostly my old discs are battered and worn and of no interest to anyone, and that they will inevitably end up in charity shops or landfill sites.
Along came cassette tapes and quantum leaps in technology and soon we were compiling our own selections of music, recorded from our own, or friends LPs or even from the radio. The sound quality was quite acceptable and the tapes did not accumulate more clicks pops and scratches. I have a huge collection of tapes; they are also in the basement.
It was CDs that saw the demise of vinyl. Crystal clear digital sound from small, light plastic discs that were originally said to withstand all sorts of damage without the sound quality being marred. Nobody mentioned the effect of childrens fingerprints.
Then home computers with massive data storage enable us to copy our collections onto hard drives, select songs and play them at the touch of a key. Now there are no fiddly tapes or discs and the CDs have become redundant. I have hundreds of them and rarely play one; soon they will be consigned to the basement.
Now we have Spotify. For a few pounds a month, I can stream from I don't know where, any music that I want and play it in any room in the house or even on my smart phone or iPad. There is nothing else to consign to the basement apart from me.
Vinyl is making a comeback and there are people out there collecting the half century old records that I grew up with. I am pretty sure that mostly my old discs are battered and worn and of no interest to anyone, and that they will inevitably end up in charity shops or landfill sites.
Along came cassette tapes and quantum leaps in technology and soon we were compiling our own selections of music, recorded from our own, or friends LPs or even from the radio. The sound quality was quite acceptable and the tapes did not accumulate more clicks pops and scratches. I have a huge collection of tapes; they are also in the basement.
It was CDs that saw the demise of vinyl. Crystal clear digital sound from small, light plastic discs that were originally said to withstand all sorts of damage without the sound quality being marred. Nobody mentioned the effect of childrens fingerprints.
Then home computers with massive data storage enable us to copy our collections onto hard drives, select songs and play them at the touch of a key. Now there are no fiddly tapes or discs and the CDs have become redundant. I have hundreds of them and rarely play one; soon they will be consigned to the basement.
Now we have Spotify. For a few pounds a month, I can stream from I don't know where, any music that I want and play it in any room in the house or even on my smart phone or iPad. There is nothing else to consign to the basement apart from me.
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