How Owning Vinyl Changed My Relationship With Music

Ever since I was a kid, music was an important thing for me. I played multiple instruments like piano, violin and drums and I also had people around me that were very passionate about music. This led me gain a wide variety in the genres I listened to, from classical all the way through to heavy metal.

All through this time, I hadn’t really heard or seen many people speak about records or owning vinyl and it was only until I was 17 when I attended a northern soul night in Manchester that I started to get it. A lot of the older generation rave about how elite vinyl is and this article isn’t about that, but more the intense connection that you get between either the record and yourself.

Playing vinyl is objectively harder than playing on CDJs and this is mostly due to the lack of screen and also visual aids to help in those dark-lit rooms. This means that as a dj, you’re more likely to be focussing intensely on the records you’re playing and the down time is spent looking for the next record or having a boogie then. There’s also the skill of knowing your tracks as you can only bring a finite amount through to the gigs you play which allows for meticulously planned sets.

I said at the title how it changed my relationship with music. Think back to the Spotify/Apple Music playlists you own, do you think you could remember every tune you added to the playlist and when you did it? Owning something physical takes you back to a moment in time and I think that’s really special. I’m 26 right now and I’ve been having a lot of nostalgia about my childhood and the things I got to experience and I would’ve loved having records from back then.

The first ever record I bought was Macky Gee - Tour (unironically too!). I’d seen it be advertised and Tour was one of the first songs that got me into Dnb in the first place and that was my form of nostalgia. Since then, I’ve been buying and expanding my collection to outside of Dnb which has allowed me to find some absolute gems.

Unlike my Spotify playlist, which currently has 1039 songs, I’m able to identify where I got my records from and also what songs are on it. It also feels quite ritualistic placing a vinyl on the turntable and cueing up a song, something that we take for granted when skipping through playlists.

Over the years, music has turned more into a commodity and a product. Marketing strategies have changed, artists outputs have changed and overall we’re looking at over 100,000 tracks a day getting uploaded to Spotify. This means it’s so difficult to have a timeless tune now as compared to  30/40 years ago where radio was the deciding factor in getting your music out to the masses.

Vinyl forces you to slow down and enjoy the music that you have selected, and really listening to a body of music from an artist you like is so fun! Of course the same can be said for Spotify radio, which has an incredible algorithm for finding similar tunes to the one last played and it’s allowed me to find some absolute gems. In my opinion, it’s not “vinyl vs digital” but actually “speed vs accessibility”.

Owning records in today’s world is more of a luxury and it shows that you really appreciate the artist to play them through the medium of turntables. With most businesses turning to the subscription model and repeatedly saying how consumers don’t actually own the products they buy, owning vinyl gives you something that you can pass on or share around with your community and for me, that changed my life for the better. I’ve met some incredible people through record fairs and crate digging, you truly never know what you’re gonna get out of it.

If you want to get started on your vinyl journey or even add to your collection, I have a vinyl for sale on the website which is the remix EP for New Perspectives. This EP contains remixes from Teej, Clarkey, Acuna and Wrekka and was so much fun to put together. The lads absolutely smashed it and it’s quite surreal that I have personal vinyl to share with the world so if you’re into records already or want to pick up your first, I have got you sorted!!