The Case for Vinyl Records

“With headphones and mp3s, music becomes a discretely personal affair. Although a personal attachment to music is a good thing, it eliminates the social components of music. The shared experience of listening with others is not unlike the cultural rituals of communal eating. Music may not have the primal necessity of food, but it is something people commonly ingest together. To listen alone might be akin to eating a cheeseburger in a corner: nourishing but isolated. Before recording technologies became available, music was a primarily social affair. Live performance was the only avenue to experience music, whether it be at the opera, dancehall, or church.”