So there's been a little snag with my turntable order. The seller on eBay hasn't shipped it or contacted me yet, so I've been trying to chase it down. I just hope the seller isn't a complete fraud. eBay has guarantees so I won't lose my money, but I really wanted that turntable at that price. So we'll see what happens in the next few weeks.
I've already got a decent start on my new record collection, a mix of old and new:
London Calling by The Clash
Weather Systems by Anathema
Electric by Pet Shop Boys
The Perks of Being a Wallflower soundtrack
The King James Version by the Harry James Orchestra (an original Sheffield Labs direct to disc pressing)
The Velveteen Rabbit by Meryl Streep and George Winston
The Steadfast Tin Soldier by Jeremy Irons and Mark Isham
Purple Rain soundtrack by Prince and the Revolution
Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd
O Brother Where Art Thou Bona Fide Rarities and Unreleased Tracks soundtrack
Kveikur by Sigur Ros
The children's stories, especially the Velveteen Rabbit, are replacements from my old collection. I was always amazed how much better they sounded on vinyl than on CD, so it should make a good demonstration. The human voice is one of the hardest things to reproduce accurately and we're all most critical about listening to it because we hear it more than any other instrument.
Tonight I listened to some of my SACD samplers while reading Sandman. It's been a while since I've played an entire album at home, although I've been listening to a lot of Pandora lately.
The other day, I was listening to Paramore's Riot! album on the train and I had a powerful memory of the person I was back when that album came out. It was like I was inhabiting the mind of the person I used to be when I was living in New Jersey and working in New York, being with Tara and first meeting Puck. I remember how much more innocent I felt, how much more open I was to new things and ideas. I was a sponge, soaking up everything to do with living my new life, with new people, in a new place.
Compared to then, I'm much more stable, set in my ways. I've never been keen about meeting new people, but I'm probably a little better at it now than I was then, but I'm less inclined to adopt ideas from people close to me. I have a better sense of who I am, and there's a feeling of permanence to my personality now. Paramore's music brought me back to my adolescence of five years ago, when I had no idea where life would take me. It was an interesting out-of-body experience. Music, like sights and smells, can be the catalyst to take you to a place and time before you became who you are. It's another way of looking back and seeing how far you've come along your chosen path.
