Plastiques?

I like vinyls. I think they're pretty nifty. I also like CDs. But the vast vast majority of my collection is mp3 format. And this is the strange life I live with my music.

The thing I can't stand is people who "only" listen to vinyl. Or claim it sounds better. Or whatever. Because it's blatantly not true. Yes, a very good quality vinyl will sound better than a song 96 kbps encoded mp3 downloaded off of limewire or wherever kids are getting their illegal mp3's these days, but so will an 8-track. Fact is, most vinyls are recorded on recycled plastic and contain a lot of errors, and the ones that aren't are older and just poorer quality. Most of the time the sound is only as good as the receiver and speakers it's piped through, and because hipsters don't understand this, they have poor quality equipment a lot of the time.

So why do I have vinyls? Because they're fun. They're big, tangible, and just so very real. I rarely listen to my vinyls. In fact, I don't know when the last time I did listen to them. Another thing I like is that it's like having part of history. I have a first edition Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club, which I've never had a desire to listen to (I'm bizarre and don't like that album. One of my few faults, I'm sure.). But it's such an important album in history, it feels really cool to own. I even have the little mustache cut-outs.

What I really like owning though are CDs. They are the perfect music format. They don't compress the music down, or do so by only a bit. So they have a much better sound than mp3s, but aren't as awkward to carry around as vinyls. Plus the whole tangibility thing is going on again.