Stars on 78

Kyle is going though one of her periodic rounds of ebaying at the moment (well, 'tis the season). She often gets interesting stuff to sell from her parents and their neighbours, which this time includes a box of about thirty 78rpm records.

As someone who used to be an avid buyer of vinyl this is a slice of history. Most of my music collection pre-1997 consists of 33 and 45 rpm records (these days it's almost exclsuively cds and downloads), and I've always felt a lot of affection for vinyl discs. Admittedly vinyl is increasingly anarchronistic these days, but I still enjoy picking out some long-unheard record and giving it a spin on my turntable.

A lot of it has to be pure nostalgia on my part. Viewed at a purely practical level, as simple containers for music cds are infinitely more convenient. And while I've heard the arguments that analogue is far richer than digital, the sad fact is most often neither my record player nor the discs themselves are of sufficient quality to match the clean sound that comes as standard with cds.

But it made me think that maybe sometimes there's more to listening to music than just hearing the sounds. Taking a record out of its sleeve, putting it on the turntable and dropping the needle takes a little more time and effort than simply popping a cd into a machine and pressing play, and I only tend to do it nowadays if I feel I have a bit of time to stop and listen. There's also a more direct physical engagement with the process. I'm not saying that it's better experience, just different, and that sometimes it's good to stop and listen to music rather than simply treating it like a background soundtrack to life.

Anyway, back to these 78 rpm records. They feature various artists that I'd never heard of before who turned out to be big names in the 1950s, such as Fran Warren and Claude Thornhill. Physically the discs remind me of the 10" EPs that I own, but the most noticeable difference is how heavy and substantial the 78s are in comparison.

Since we don't have any way to play these records, we don't know what condition they're in. But hopefully they'll still sound good and will end up with someone who loves hearing music on old vinyl discs and has the time to enjoy them. For me, it's just been great to have a chance to see a little bit of recording history up close and personal.