Licorice Pizza: My History With Vinyl

I spent hours amusing myself with my rather haphazard collections, covering everything from the disco hit “Le Freak” by Chic and Michael Jackson’s Thriller album to an hodge-podge of old Disney soundtracks and recorded stories. Over and over I’d listen to these records while jumping on my bed and belting out whichever lyrics I actually knew. When bored with merely listening to the records, I’d gain a great deal of enjoyment switching the speed to 45 on my 33 1/3rds, giggling as Michael Jackson morphed into a chipmunk through the single speaker attached to my player. Other times, I’d study the album covers and record labels, wondering what the heck “Pickwick” was and making up my own stories of what was going on in the various pictures and layouts that adored the jackets.

Throughout the years, my mother and father continuously introduced me to various bands and musical genres, especially when a new record was added to their collection. I specifically remember my mom’s purchase of a Bob Dylan album from a local church’s rummage sale. She played it while humoring me with her participation in some strange makeshift tennis game I’d come up with using tiny novelty tennis rackets (purchased from the same sale, of course). A couple minutes into the song, I asked my mom if there was something wrong with the record because the guy’s voice sounded really messed up. She informed me that this was his normal voice and I was quite disturbed. Just like it had with classical, it would take a few more years to really appreciate what I was hearing, but at least the seed of awareness had rightfully been implanted by an influential source.

Other times, I’d find out about a musical artist on the radio and at school and come to find out that my parents owned the record. From Scott Joplin to the Rolling Stones, I could pop on any array of “new to me” artists and revel in their melodies. Later on, the records would reveal stories about my parents’ lives as well as my own. The empty White Album sleeve with a serial number served as both a testament to a theft by a fellow student in my mom’s college dormitory as well as her inability to ever throw anything away. The numerous Jesse Colin Young albums showed a phase of artist adoration as well as an inspiration for my name years later. As I got older, I came to see the shoddy condition of my father’s collection as the reflection of a man who was always deeply moved by the music he loved and who saw the importance of sharing this love (and potential inspiration) with his students.

During these years of vinyl discovery, it never seemed to matter to me that I was using what was now considered an archaic form of music technology, nor did it matter that other kids my age and older were doing what I was doing as some right of hipster passage. Though I later tried starting a new collection of vinyl that better reflected my current music tastes, I always seemed to retreat back to the newer formats that had become easier for providing me with my music fix at any moment: CDs and later on, downloads.

For me, vinyl was not going to become the ultimate way to acquire music by my favorite artists or show off to the rest of the world just how amazing and eclectic (I think) my taste in music really is. Though vinyl may not be a major part of my life now, I cannot deny how important it was to my personal discovery of music and family history. Each album in my family’s collection tells a story of my or my family’s past, and it will be years before I discover just how many tales hide within the sleeves. I will never be able to hear certain songs without imagining a cheerful little blonde girl bouncing around the house, blissfully ignorant of how hip (or dated) the songs were that she was listening to.

But she was totally aware that she was rocking out to vinyl.

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