Back to vinyl

Records are something I've rediscovered this year. I never got rid of my record collection. It's always been something I've been very proud of, and which represents a lot for me. However, I've been out of the habit of listening to them for years. I've been a sucker for the ease of CDs, seduced by their availability and compactness. Records are so much more demanding and fussy; they are the prima donna of the audio media world. I mean, even the humble cassette can be played on a deck with an auto-reverse feature. Haughty vinyl, however, requires one to come across and flip it over mid-album. If we don't acquiesce to this attention-seeking ploy, it makes that quiet yet persistent - nay, relentless - bumping sound that says 'I've got to the end of the side, you're going to have to move the needle now.'

But all this fuss only serves to make vinyl more loveable, more warts-and-all authentic. When my girlfriend moved in a few months ago and brought her records with her, that was it. Vinyl's back, along with changing sides and wiping the dust off (or rather trying to - you're always on a hiding to nothing with that little exercise). And so I've been listening to lots of neglected tunes, many from the years 1977-84. Being a 41 year old dad throws a new light onto some; for example, I've found that Machine Gun Etiquette by The Damned is the perfect album for Scalextric racing. The other week I listened to Playing With A Different Sex, an album by angsty feminist punk band The Au Pairs. I was hoovering at the time. I found myself knowing every song off by heart after 20 years, and wondered why I spent so much time at that stage of my life listening to a band whose every song condemned my entire gender as being bastards.

The best bit though came the other day when I paid my first visit to Oxfam Music. Thanks to the specialisatory approach Oxfam are developing, here was mountains of charity shop vinyl under one roof. All the sort of thing that was in the shops when I was at the height of my record collecting heyday. And the same prices too - I always had a rule that I'd pay no more than £3 for a record, and there were plenty at that rate. Paradise. In fact, given that one of my purchases was Meatloaf's Bat Out Of Hell, you could say Paradise By The Dashboard Light. Mmmm...