New Vinyl and Old Vinyl

I went to Border's today, the book store. My 11-year-old son loves books. That's a very good thing, but expensive. We bought him five books. Maybe -- just maybe -- they'll get him through the weekend.

Guess what else I saw at Borders -- our local store, in South Portland, Maine. Vinyl records. At Borders, which was, last time I checked, a division of K-Mart (or was it Wal-Mart?).  The selection is even worse -- if that's possible -- than it is at Best Buy. I may have seen ten titles there, and considering the prices -- pretty much $19.95 and up for records I can get six or seven dollars cheaper at my local independent music store -- there were none that I was interested in buying.

Yet there are now two stores at the mall that carry vinyl. When there's vinyl at the mall -- twice -- vinyl is officially back.

To be honest, I don't care much about vinyl at Borders or Best Buy. I'll buy my records -- even the new ones -- elsewhere. And even if they start carrying records at Rite Aid or the local gas station, new vinyl is likely to remain, for me, a sideline. I expect to remain committed to the old stuff.  Consider this one of the central commitments of this blog: Vinyl is wonderful; yes, I do think it sounds better, and anyway I love it. And old vinyl -- vinyl with a legacy -- is better than new.

I'll consider both here, old records and new. I'll probably even mention a CD or two; we'll see. But old records --- by which I mean records that were issued before CDs became the dominant medium -- are best.