The Best Gifts of Friendship

The best gifts are the personal ones.

You know the type: they don't necessarily cost a lot, and don't even have to be new. Typically, these "supreme" gifts are chosen with ultimate care with the recipient's personality in mind.

Yesterday, my dear friend Sean presented me with a great gift. With little fanfare he produced three records, all in primo condition. So what was the booty? Winger's self-titled release, Def Leppard's Pyromania and RATT's Out of the Cellar.

I already own these titles on the more modern CD or download format, but not vinyl. Sean is (just a little bit) older than me, and he's a big record collector. He likes to talk glam with me, even though his musical tastes have surpassed my passion. He's more into the funk now: James Brown, Parliament Funkadelic, you get the idea.  Still, Sean's been to his fair share of glam concerts, and he recently remarked he saw Def Leppard "When they were so young!"

I'm very excited about my new records. I have just about every Aerosmith release on vinyl, plus a lot of Van Halen and some other titles, but my three new additions really give my collection a boost.

I love vinyl, but I'm not elitist about it like a lot of people that read this website (and you know who you are). I love the size of the artwork and how the bands are featured prominently, typically with individual photos. Sean says he likes listening to one side and then having to get up and flip for the next listen. I never really thought about that before, but it makes sense: it takes time to absorb and appreciate good music. While I swear by my iPod (and would probably be arrested if I didn't have it to listen to while at work) I can understand how the quality of music is diluted these days. It's not hard to get sucked in by trends and the latest sale at Hot Topic. Vinyl makes me remember the golden age of Metal.

Comments

[aXe mAn]

Very cool Allyson. Nice additions!

[Metal Mark]

I have a few albums and still listen to them fairly often. I love the look, feel and sound of them.

[bob_vinyl]

I'm a big fan of vinyl. I like the richer analog sound, but even more, I like the imperfections, the little pops and hisses that even new vinyl has sometimes. And you just can't argue with the BIG pictures! Oh yeah, and then there's colored vinyl. I still buy stuf that's coming out now on vinyl. No Idea Records (http://www.noidearecords.com) has some really great colored vinyl. It's a punk label, so probably not your thing, but you should take a look at the site, because the vinyl is amazing!

[Christian Graus]

What I love most about vinyl is big cover art, and picture discs. What I hate about it, is how importable it is, how pure the sound isn't, and how you just had to sit still and listen to it.

I do agree that music used to be an event, you sat down to listen to an album, now, you just have it going, all the time ( well, I do )

I have a new CD to listen to today ( just arrived in Texas ), namely Dirty Penny. It's signed, and while that is cool, getting five signatures onto a CD cover doesn't leave much room, another way albums were better.

BTW - the CD did not arrive before I left, will send when I get home

[Vince Neilstein]

I recently acquired Motley Crue's "Girls Girls Girls" and Hanoi Rocks' "Two Steps From the Move" on vinyl in awesome condition for 8 bucks each. This made me very happy.

[Ray Van Horn, Jr.]

It's all so surreal to me having once owned a generous helping of vinyl to look at it now as a nostalgic thing. I sold the majority of my vinyl around the advent of the CD and now I have a handful of vinyl with nothing to play them on, but it's great seeing a blown-up Twisted Sister and even better is my Ramones bootleg from 1974 on my birthday that's framed and mounted in my cellar. Rock!