Vinyl Nostalgia

Okay, I’m going to date myself with this post. Remember records? You know, those huge, heavy, fragile disks that popped and scratched and hissed through every song? Yeah, digitally remastered is pretty cool, but I’ve always been a fan of the record. At the ripe old age of 6, I was trained by my parents on our record player, and was set loose among their albums, stored in an old wooden orange crate under the stereo. I still have the crate, which has served me well over the years, and could be considered an heirloom, as it was my parent’s first piece of furniture after they got married. I’m quite fond of it. And it is currently filled with my albums, a great many of which I inherited from my parents.

But just as fun as listening to the albums was looking at the album covers. While the record was playing I would sit on the green carpet in our living room, and look at the album covers, trace the raised lettering. Of course, I had favorites, albums that mesmerized me as a child for one reason or another, albums that were usually my favorites in terms of music as well. Here are a few of my top choices, my favorite album covers from childhood:


Sly & The Family Stone could probably be considered the anthem of my youth. And I loved the people, the multiples of everyone in the band, their bright funky clothing, and especially the woman with the white afro. On the inside cover there is a huge picture of Sly that I also used to adore.


Big Brother & The Holding Company. Some of Janis Joplin’s finest stuff. The album was drawn by Robert Crumb, which I didn’t know at the time, but makes it even cooler now. It tickled me that each song had a cartoon, and I could follow along on the album with the drawings. Of course, I missed the nature of many of the drawings, and the subtle, and not so subtle drug references, but the cartoons were still just really cool.


The Band. I loved this picture, and although I couldn’t have defined it at the time, I found it so haunting. There is this gaunt quality to the men, hollow cheeks and eyes, and an indefinable sadness that I was so drawn to. Plus, it’s a seriously great album.


Led Zepplin, Physical Graffiti. The coolest thing about this album was that the outside cover was just the building, with cut-outs where all the windows are. The inside sleeve had pictures printed on it that, when inserted in the cover, lined up with the window cut-outs. I loved to “look in the windows,” and pretend that it was a real apartment building. In which case, it would have been a seriously weird one, seeing as there were cartoons, naked people, Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra, and some things that I probably just didn’t even understand yet.

There were more – a really cool Wes Montgomery Album, Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde, Sgt. Pepper’s, but these were the ones that I pulled out time after time, the ones that got battered from use. Looking back, it was awfully cool of my parents to give a little kid free reign with their albums. I can’t say that I’d do the same, but it definitely set up my musical education at an early age. I still like spending a Saturday afternoon sitting on the floor, surrounded by albums, looking at the pictures while I listen to the hissing, skipping records. You just don’t get that from an Ipod.