Last Goodbye

Why flipping the record over is underrated

Every day I love my record player more and more. This likely has something to do with fearing what the internet has become more and more every day.

I don’t really know much about record players—the maintenance, the sound quality, what makes a good record player versus a bad one. I just know I love the $100 record player I received for Christmas over six years ago now.

Lately, I find tremendous comfort in leaving my phone in my desk drawer or in another room, and putting on an album front to back. I’m hopelessly enamored with music, and I feel the lack when I go a day without it.

However, it has become clear to me that my values don’t align with Spotify’s as a company. I’m not sure I want to keep giving this service $12.99 per month for the foreseeable future. It seems the people in charge don’t really care about music, and it’s disheartening to say the least.

Listening to my records provides an escape from the horrible noise of being online. When I get to the end of one side of a disc and realize I’m not sure where my phone is, my mind genuinely feels calmer.

Since discovery is something that drives my listening, I am pleasantly surprised that listening to albums I already love by artists I’m already familiar with has paved the way for finding new music.

I love listening to a pre-owned album—whether it was passed down from family members or bought at a stranger’s yard sale—and thinking that this is how people once discovered their new favorite songs. Maybe you’d buy a record like Synchronicity by The Police so you could listen to a hit like “Every Breath You Take,” and you’d end up loving the track “King of Pain” following it.

I bought a used Bob Dylan greatest hits album back in the fall for $10 and discovered the song “Positively 4th Street.” Similarly, I bought Grace by Jeff Buckley this past weekend. Already a fan of over half the songs on the album, I the song “Last Goodbye” is new to me. I’ve probably listened to it at least five times a day over the last few days.

I know these songs are both quite popular in the grand scheme of things, but I didn’t know about them until age 24, and it matters to me that I found them when I did.

If you’re lucky enough to have a record player and a selection of albums like I am, don’t skip past the songs you don’t know. They may end up changing your week.