We got new carpeting, replacing carpeting that was never all that nice and now was not all that nice and decades old.
This required going through a lot of old stuff and moving it so the old carpeting could be torn out and the new one put in.
And it reminded me that I still have tons of vinyl records.
Because I grew up in the pre-CD era and spent far too much of my youth in used-record stores.
I have a lot of records I bought used, some of which are not in great shape.
I have a lot of vinyl albums I bought because I loved one song on the record and knew I’d want to listen to it at least every few months. And I bought them in the pre-Spotify, pre-YouTube days when it was difficult to listen to an obscure song if you didn’t own a physical copy.
Those were different times.
And now the literal weight of all those records is getting me down.
Since the new carpeting went in, the records are in a few big piles and I’m sorting through them.
This is not the first big record purge I’ve done. There have been at least two previous ones, decades ago. The stack of records whispers to me, “It’s time.”
And the records are right. The time has come again, so I’m doing musical triage.
And it’s difficult.
There are some albums I searched for for months or years.
Others that take me back to exact eras (and sometimes exact moments).
So many records that I remember where I got them (from stores like Main Street Records, Faces of Earth, Newbury Comics, Platterpus, Ameoba, Strawberries, the Coop, Rhino Records, and many more).
These chunks of plastic (encased in paper and cardboard) bring up memories of different days and nights, different places, and dozens of different versions of myself.
I own a few records that are surprisingly valuable, but I was always a music fan instead of a collector. It’s fine for people to obsess over which pressing plant manufactured a particular copy of an album, but that was never me. I was always there for the music.
I found a few records that I absolutely can’t stand anymore and wonder what possessed a past version of me to think I could want to listen to them over and over.
I think it’s been at least ten years since I bought anything on vinyl. And I haven’t played many of these records in decades.
Some I’ll keep for sentimental reasons (like all my XTC and Beatles records). Some I’ll reluctantly let go (a bunch of later Ringo Starr records, some collections I subsequently got on CD).
Right now, there are three piles. The definite-keep pile, the definite-chuck pile (to be donated to a charity or sold), and a large pile of maybes.
Each and every one of these records has brought me joy in the past. Some could still bring me joy in the future. But many are just weighing me down.
And it’s time for them to go out into the world where perhaps they can bring someone else joy.
Did a big CD purge a year ago and I've never regretted throwing out a single one. But vinyl? That's a whole different ball (or platter) of wax.
We have many too, and our record player has been packed up for over a year now. I miss my partner dj'ing on a whim, for hours. When we get this house on the market, finally move somewhere else permanently, I want to play them again. I think. But do we want to move the shelves of them? Such a part of each of our lives, going back to childhood. I hope whatever memories young people are making now will be as strong and wonderful as ours with songs on vinyl.