On January 26th my wonderfully millennial younger step brother, at the age of 36, passed away. For less than a year, he knowingly fought skin cancer that had metastasized. In life he had succeeded where boomers and us x-ers had largely given up. He had avoided falling prey to the contemporary iteration of the ’50’s suburban dystopia and its creature comforts. Millennials, it seems, by and large have taken up this struggle in their own way. Many are narrowly avoiding life in a cubicle. My brother, in his last few years, was a successful entrepreneur, his own boss, and had succeeded in living his life his own way, on his own terms, and thereby having many adventures in his relatively short years.
For what would be our last Christmas gift exchange I had drawn his name. Knowing he hadn’t much appetite, nor the ability to consume alcohol, I had suggested to him that I could select some records. Despite years of near nomadic living, he had always been a connoisseur of vinyl, including a stint as a DJ; he was stoked on the idea.
With records recently outselling digital, excluding subscriptions/streaming, it was a simple matter of visiting my local purveyor “Ditch Records”. The last time I was in a record store, I wasn’t yet tall enough to see above the bins. Though, I had my very own version of Corey Hart’s record with the hit “Sunglasses at night” on it, most of my music as a youth was on tape cassettes and later CDs; my first CD being a Christmas gift – Tom Cochrane, “Mad Mad World” circa ’91.
For my brother’s 2017 Christmas, I picked out some of my recent, favourite albums, which happened to be in stock at the local shop.
*with a “Limited Edition Colour Vinyl” sticker on it.
So I’d spent more than our alleged limit – so what. These were some of my current favourites, and I had hoped he would enjoy them.
Following our family Christmas festivities, my brother returned to his new hometown, and four weeks later passed away. I was shocked. Post death, the records were returned to me, sad and still shrink-wrapped. Having no record player myself, but having long held a curiosity regarding my brother’s interest, a new exploration beckoned… What is a good beginner audiophile setup? Why is vinyl the new hotness? Does it really sound better? What is this limited edition colour vinyl? Does it matter? How does this all work? What does it all mean? And what was my brother on about?
Our next instalment on exploring [the] art [of vinyl] will be on my process of researching and buying a Hi-Fi, which, as in most things, wasn’t as straightforward as it might sound.
Exploring-Art 
As a child of the 6o’s, I see the continued interest in vinyl as an observation that technology is not always an ever-improving process. Some memes are already as good as they can get. A vinyl LP played on a turntable, with good speakers, sounded just as good 30 years ago. Music evolves and each generation grooves to a different beat but there is a comfort in knowing there are familiar experiences that continue to be shared amongst all of us.