The week of April 20th marked two significant historical events. The first was Record Store Day, an annual promotional event targeting independent record shops and vinyl enthusiasts since 2008. This year saw the best one-week sales performance for records since Soundscan began keeping track in 1991.

The second event — admittedly of lesser historical significance to anybody besides me — was that my iTunes library exploded for no apparent reason. There are 170,000 tunes meticulously organized, dispatched into one thousand playlists and spanning the complete history of recorded music; my iTunes library could have been played end-to-end, without repeat, for more than 500 consecutive days. You could have conceived a baby, taken it to term, given birth to it and taught it to crawl before circling from ZZ-Top back to ABBA.

via Dave Tomar: Records Aren’t Just For Hipsters Anymore.

I have a record collection.

I have the first record I ever bought. It’s a Monkees Greatest Hits record that they sold on TV after the show was in  reruns. I got it in 1975. I asked my mom for it for my birthday. It’s a flimsy double album in a single sleeve with no artwork. I haven’t played it in years. But I hold onto it because it reminds me of being in 3rd grade and watching the Monkees before school. Good times.

I have the original Star Wars soundtrack. The corner is of the jacket is chewed away. My long dead dog had a snack. It still has the poster in it with the thumbtack holes from when I hung it on my bedroom wall. I have Bat Out of Hell and The Stranger. I hate those albums now. I bought them in 5th grade. I used to have Kiss Alive II, but I lost it in a move years ago. I still love that album.

Over the years I’ve collected a couple of thousand records. I have them in a shelf in a closet. I don’t remember buying them all, but I remember getting quite a few of them. I listen to records every day. I makes me feel good after working all day. I don’t mind getting up every 20 minutes to flip it over. It keeps me active.

I bought CD’s when they first came out in the 1980’s. They were $12.99 each. A store a few towns away had a sale. 2 for $25.00. I bought Little Richards Greatest Hits and Sgt. Peppers. I still have Little Richard. My ex wife got the Beatles in the divorce a long time ago. I think I got the better deal.

Do you remember those giant CD player carousels? They held about 100 CD’s. If you had one, you had more money than I did. I really wanted one of them. But they were hundreds of dollars. I barely had beer money. Who knew they’d be totally obsolete within 20 years.

Records cost $6.99 back when I was in high school. I remember because my copy of Nick Lowe’s Cowboy Outfit still has the price tag sticker on it. I figured I could buy twice as many records as CD’s, so I bought records.

I didn’t feel like getting caught up in the audiophile debate about which format was better. I am a music fan, not a scientist. You’ll put me to sleep if you start talking about the warmth of vinyl. It all sounds good to me. If you like your MP3’s then more power to you. We can still be friends.

My stereo system is from the 1980’s. I bought it a few years ago at an estate sale. The guy selling it was in his 70’s and moving to Florida. He had it in his living room prominently displayed in an O’Keefe stereo cabinet. The kind with the glass doors with the magnets on them that opened when you pushed them in a little. This guy spent a bunch of money on this stereo 30 years ago. He enjoyed it for a long time. It was the center piece of his family room. It looked very cool. I had to get the phono channel on the receiver fixed, but now I can enjoy it for another 20 years.

It’s like an audio time machine. I love it. I don’t have the money for a McIntosh tube amp. I’d love one, but I have other things I need. Like food.

If you know anyone who fixes cassette decks drop a line in the comments section. The matching cassette deck for my stereo system needs new belts and rollers. No one wants to fix it. They say it is not worth it. I’d like to get it working again to play all the old mix tapes my ex girlfriends made for me. Good times…

I’m listening to Run For the Roses right now. I had to get up and flip it over to hear more of Jerry Garcia. He covers I Saw Her Standing There. That takes balls.

I bought the record this weekend at a record show for $3.00. The VFW Hall a few towns over has a record show every few months. Guys that used to own record stores set up picnic tables and sell their records.

I saw something at the record show I’d never seen before. Instead of the regular Aspergian men in their mid 50’s combing through stacks of 45’s. I saw a couple of high school girls flipping through LPs.

Vinyl has indeed made a comeback. It’s both an annoying and cool trend.

I can buy the new David Bowie record on Amazon and they give me a digital download copy along with the vinyl which already comes with a CD. But I have to pay $25.00 for it. And the guys at the record show are charging $5.00 for ZZ Top records when they used to charge $1.00.

Years ago when you were selling your vinyl collection to replace your records with CD’s, I was going to the used record store right behind you and buying all of your old records. I got every Bruce Springsteen record for $2.00 each. I got all of your Led Zeppelin records too. I have all the Creedence and all the Doors. I’ve got a well rounded collection of your classic rock records. I got a bunch of them from the dollar bin.

There is a record store not far from my house. They used to sell $1.00 records, now they are $5.00. I don’t buy as many as I used to. My record buying habit has a budget. This vinyl resurgence is a double edged sword.

Back before Amoeba took over the Rock N Bowl on Haight Street, we used to head over to Telegraph Ave in Berkeley and pick through the dollar bins at Amoeba and Rasputin. That was a whole Saturday afternoon.

We used to save up and go to the punk rock record stores on Valencia Street and buy indie punk records. I still have my Devil Dogs and Nine Pound Hammer albums.  They are still a shit kicking, whiskey drunk good time.

I bet you’ll never remember downloading a record from iTunes. It won’t have the same value to you as my copy of Beck’s Mutations that I bought in the Castro in 1998 has for me. I’m not saying my music experience is better than your iPhone, Dr. Dre headphones thing. But I am saying that I’ll have my records long after your iTunes thing is gone.

I just changed the record to Manic Nirvana by Robert Plant. I got it for $3.00 at the record show. For $3.00 I figured it was worth a shot. It sounds exactly like you think a 1990 Robert Plant album would. Love him or hate him, but he was the lead singer of Led Zeppelin for a reason.

When George Jones died last month, I had a copy of his live record from the 1980’s. I played it and it sounded wonderful. I cried a little. I can’t remember when I got that one. At a garage sale maybe?

I’m not some vinyl snob. I don’t look down on your MP3 collection. I see the convenience and portability of it. My collection was born of lack of money for CD’s, and it just grew from there. Used records are still cheaper than iTunes.  I just like to listen to music. I don’t care if it is convenient.

Hopefully I’ll still be around buying vinyl when the hipsters lose interest and start dumping their collections like their parents did 25 years ago. I’ll pick up your Vampire Weekend collection for a few bucks.