33 1/3 RPM.


I spent the first evening of 2018 very pleasantly, listening to some of my old LPs on the record player my wife bought me for Christmas.

For someone who used to collect vinyl, I’m ashamed to say I hadn’t played any of my hoard in years, as I no longer had a turntable set up, so to be able to listen to them tonight was a real treat. The first LP on my three-album itinerary was 'The Buddy Holly Story'; a compilation that was released less than a month after Buddy died, which my mum bought soon after it came out and gave to me as incentive thirty years later, when I didn’t want to go to the swimming lessons she’d booked to make up for the ones I’d missed at school, because I suffered from terrible ear infections as a kid.

It’s testament to how great Buddy was that I’ve never grown sick of his music, despite playing his songs countless times when I portrayed him on tour. Listening to him is like being reunited with an old friend. The LP I pulled out tonight is in perfect condition despite being just a little shy of sixty years old (while I'm nearly thirty-seven) and it's great to hear it on vinyl pretty much as nature (or Norman Petty) intended.

No sooner did the last bar of the final song ‘I Guess it Doesn’t Matter Anymore’ ring out, than I switched it for "With the Beatles', which just so happens to be another of the records I liberated from my mum's record collection as a kid. While I’m generally more inclined to listen to their later work, I have a soft spot for the early stuff too and there’s no denying their second album is a pop classic. I’m in constant awe of how quickly the group developed and those sonic leaps were already being made mere months after they’d recorded their début 'Please Please Me"; I’d recommend revisiting it if you haven’t in a while - and if you don’t know it, you’re in for revelation (or should that be Revolution?)

I finished off the evening with a little David Bowie, which is as good a way to end the first day of the year as any. Playing with my new record player has definitely reinvigorated my long-dormant vinyl bug; expect to see me scouring market stalls and boot-sales near you.

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