The Archive from Sean Dunne on Vimeo.

Over the course of this young millennium the internet has forever changed the way our society locates, loves, and listens to music. The mp3 has revolutionized the ease of accessing, sharing, and distributing music. While there are many positive aspects of this revolution,  there remain drawbacks that only the most devout audiophiles may still appreciate.

DJs and Producers used to have to dig through hundreds of crates to find that perfect cut to sample, or track to drop. Today the internet facilitates the search and reduces the dedication needed to find that perfect track. This is one of the reasons many argue that becoming a DJ is just to easy these days (alongside previously mentioned technologies that make it easier to beat mach and mix). There was a dedication to music that earlier DJs had to have, a desire to search long, wide, and everywhere in between in order to have the freshest and dopest tracks to move their audiences. Today blogs are the crate, and you are digging! The opposition to my argument is the fact that it allows everyone to be exposed to more music, find new artists and appreciate a wider variety of music.

In the above video Paul Mawhinney mentions the fact that digital audio doesn’t keep the same highs and lows when compressed. The quality of vinyl is something that a lot of audiophiles claim to be unparalleled by other recording mediums. The truth is, even the highest bit rate mp3 will not have the same amount of information as a record and this will always be a shame. However, when one compares the amount of space required to hold immense collections, there is no argument that mp3s are more practical for everyday life.

When I was a kid I used to love going downstairs grabbing a record I hadn’t heard by an artist I loved and letting it play right through. Today we rarely take the time to hear a whole album, often we opt to listen to the songs we have heard/heard of and ignore the rest. I am truly sad that my dad got rid of all of his old records. Pink Floyd, Bob Marley, AC/DC are all artists whose music I still have in my library, but listening to them on a record was a completely different way to experience their music, an experience that I cherished and will miss.

Vinyl is memorizing, the sound is beautiful and the crackles are  welcome. It is a shame that  someone with enough money to purchase Paul’s collection cannot see the value in it – which is greater than the sum of money it is ‘worth’. Hopefully DJs and audiophiles alike continue to see the value in vinyl. It was the first medium to bring song into our houses. It is largely responsible for sparking the evolution of music into an accessible format for the masses to consume. More importantly, its just sweet to see a DJ reach into his crate, pull out a new record, and cue it up.

Quick shout out to SplatterMonkey who spins fresh and faded vinyl at Augusta House on Tuesdays, make sure to check out his site in our blogroll!

Today I have attached some of my father’s vinyl rips, he digitized his collection before getting rid of it. I Hope you enjoy them, obviously they are not as warm as they would have been from the record, but I hope the tracks I selected will show you why I loved his records. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the sentiment of this article, your sentiments towards vinyl vs. digital music, and any other ideas this quick article may have sparked!

[audio:Sting – Rock Steady.mp3,Fleetwood Mac – Little Lies.mp3,Willie Nelson – let it be me.mp3,Chic – le freak.mp3,Bob Malry – easy skanking.mp3]