Everything old is new

VIEWPOINT

By RALPH HARDIN

Evening Times Editor

I was helping my daughter clean out her room over the weekend. It was way overdue, as she’s a senior in high school and we rehomed dozens of Dr. Seuss books, tossed a bunch of “art” pieces from her tweener creative phase and bagged up a ton of clothes she hasn’t worn in years.

Once all of that was done, we started organizing what was left into a nice, neat teenager’s room (with the exception of her stuffed animal collection that has been building since before she was even born. Since she’s going off to college in less than a year, it was something that needed to be done.

As we’re playing the “Where do you want this?” game, I came across the old record player she was gifted last Christmas. It got me to thinking about how weird it is to me that vinyl records have made a pretty big comeback in recent years, despite being four or five generations of “How we listen to music” back in terms of age and general overall quality. When I was her age, CDs were just beginning to be a thing and I clung to my cassette collection years after everyone else made the step up. I still have those cassettes, too, even if I don’t have anything to play them on (same with my VHS tapes).

See VIEWPOINT, page A5 VIEWPOINT

From page A4

Sure, everything these days in digital. I’m not even sure where I would go if I wanted to by a physical copy of a new album (who am I kidding…

Amazon, of course).

When I was young, my Mom had a big ol’ cabinet stereo that was literally six feet long and three feet tall. It had speakers that would shake every window on Henry Cove when you cranked it up. She mostly had records (I distinctly remember the Eagles’ “Hotel California” and whatever album Billy Joel’s “Big Shot” is on, but she also had a few 8-track cassettes. I loved those things. There was something sc-fi cool about injecting the cartridge into the spaceship-looking console under the lid of that giant stereo. My favorit of those 8tracks was probably her Lynyrd Skynyrd one (since it’s the only one I can remember other than a Fleetwood Mac one).

By the time I was into music of my own, cassettes were definitely the dominant media on the market. I did eventually get into CDs, but they are apparently a blight on the environment so it’s cool that we have mostly gone to streaming and MP3s and such.

But those old records are admittedly pretty jazzy, so I’m glad the upcoming generations are aware of and appreciate them. I guess just like classic cars and retro clothing, some things are always destined to live on or at least recycle around to being desirable to keep in the collective consciousness.

And if cassette tapes ever come back around, I’ll be the hippest daddy-o in the land!