Shitty Vinyl
After 12 months of uncontrolled vinyl buying, I dug out a few records over the weekend that I had yet to spin. Vinyl junkies often own both the CD and the vinyl version of a particular recording. I located Solid Air by John Martyn – recently reissued in Deluxe Edition, and now available on 180g vinyl thanks to simply vinyl (http://www.simplyvinyl.com/index.php/john-martyn-solid-air.html) – not an inexpensive purchase. Good thick cardboard gatefold sleeve. With a reassuring thud the stylus hit the black stuff and then the wonderfully analogue chimes of John Martyn, wonderful full bass and soundstaging. It blew the remastered CD out of the water.
Ah the warm afterglow of vinylisation.
The second record was Levron Helm’s Dirt Farmer – I really enjoyed the follow up – Electric Dirt on CD, so when I spotted this album for 19.99 in Tower Records, Dublin, I bought it, sound unheard. Back in my armchair for some good lovin country blues – that great acoustic sound that you only hear on vinyl. But no – thin thin thin. No soundstage. Thin. Ugh! The label proudly proclaims – high quality 180g vinyl. It sounded like a feeble early 80s mass produced pap. Ah well, at least I can download the mp3 files for my iPod – but NO NONE no mp3 voucher just crap overpriced vinyl. This is a major issue for me – the reason why I stopped buying vinyl in the 1990s was that it started to sound so bad. As vinyl became an audiophile product, the quality improved immeasurably to the point that vinyl, today, with the demise of SACD, and before the emergence of blu-ray audio, is the defacto standard. If record companies start tossing out poor quality vinyl just because it is a source of sales, then the whole pyramid will collapse around them. Vinyl is a premium product – it costs more than CD period, we buy it because it sounds better. There is no way to know whether the sound will be good by looking at the cover (although a nice gatefold with heavy cardboard is always a good sign). Hence it is up to us, vinyl buyers to speak up and “grass out” the bad releases.
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