I DO regret not hanging on to my collection of vinyl albums (although I still have a few singles). I liked the FEEL of these things, as well as being able to immerse myself in whatever the music was. It felt as though there was more to it than merely owning a nicely presented disc by your favourite combo. One of the activities I looked forward to with a new LP was the thorough investigation of the album packaging - poring over the artwork, scanning the pictures, folding out any posters, studying lyric sheets, even a libretto. I regularly went so far as to buy one of those plastic covers, so that I could shroud the album in a protective, synthetic layer and minimise scuffing, stainage and the general wear and tear of my treasured product. But like many of us flaky music consumers in the 80's, this wasn't enough to resist the lure of the compact disc. The CD..........the revolutionary little silver platter that would be portable, hold way more information than was really necessary and seemed, to all intents and purposes, indestructible. Miles better than those things that often got scratched by the damn needle, stood on by a drunken friend or younger sibling, or warped if you left them within two miles of any kind of heat or sunlight. Pesky grooved nonsense. Get shut of them. They clog up your floor, all stacked and heavy. You can't have music on-the-go with them.
Well, I don't have any pertinent statistics to back this up, but I'm now frequently seeing vinyl albums in supermarkets of all places, so does this mean there's some kind of a resurgence going on? Is there something about that analog sound reproduction that, at the top end, seems to outdo the pristine glistening of a well-mixed digital file?