A Day in the Life

March 24-30, 2014

Vinylphile

By Becca Bona

Vinylphile. It’s not too much of a stretch for a word, although you won’t find it any dictionary that I know of. I’ve seen it in reference in a magazine which is devoted to vinyl audio information for record nerds. 

I was ecstatic when I came up with the name because I thought I had come up with an original idea, but it turns out that’s pretty hard to do. 

The thought flows though pretty straightforwardly. Bibliophiles like books, Anglophiles are extremely fond of Great Britain, therefore shouldn’t vinylphiles be huge fans of vinyl? 

My friends aren’t exactly fans of me trying to make this word catch on in everyday speech. They say I should stick with audiophile … .

Nevertheless, my Grammy

is ok with the word and with me sifting through endless shelves of records at flea markets. This can be a dangerously boring task especially if I end up finding something that looks promising, only to discover that the vinyl itself is scratched all to pieces. 

In the far left corner of just one of these shops, Grammy found a seat and I found a shelf of albums that looked exciting, but turned out to overly represent Rod Stewart, Elvis Presley, and Linda Ronstadt.

I don’t particularly favor any of those musicians, unless Rod Stewart is working with others like Jeff Beck or The Faces, but alas that was not the case here. 

I did, for the sheer fun of it, pick up a Presley album and handed it to Grammy to see if she liked any of the songs. She slid the vinyl out of the sleeve, and lo and behold, the thing was blue. 

Literally, beyond being “Moody Blue” as the namesake indicated, the vinyl itself was slightly translucent and blue like a Caribbean dream. 

This sparked a thought. I had seen colored vinyl before, but everything I had ever seen was either red or pink. Of course, it makes sense that there would be blue as well, but I wanted to know more about these mysterious colored LPs.

It turns out, there are all types of colored albums from pink to blue to marbled combinations. Sometimes the virgin black issues of records are not collectible enough, so it seems that companies release a limited number of colored vinyl for the real aficionados out there, vinylphiles if you will. 

As far as I can tell, the verdict on listening to these colored albums will never be settled. Some say actually playing colored vinyl is not worth it, because the sound quality is poorer than the traditional black vinyl. Others do not have qualms with this or even notice a difference. 

I say it depends on what you’re looking for in terms of vinyl. Namely, are you a vinylphile? Are you collecting music to store safely and keep pristine so as to have the best pressing of a particular album? Or, are you in it for the listening factor? 

I find myself often split between the two, sometimes I opt for the music and other times I opt for the novelty. 

Currently, I’m listening to a huffy Elvis drift from my living room as shades of blue glisten from the turntable. 

I suppose rightfully, vinlyphile will never truly catch on.