Three Reasons You Should Collect Vinyl Records

And Sound Quality isn’t one of them!

Tell me if you’ve heard this one before – “But you have to listen to it on vinyl, it sounds SOOOO much better.” If I’m being gracious, there’s no doubt in my mind the individual making such statements are well meaning, but that trope is played out. There are plenty of us that believe the sonic signature of vinyl is superior but don’t worry, you won’t get any of that here. I’m also sure there are more than three reasons and maybe I’ll dig into those more later, but for now, here are my top three reasons why I think you should start buying vinyl records now!

Intentionality – Slowing Things Down

Can we all agree the world moves just too damn fast these days? Everything comes at you a mile a minute, our lives inundated by ads, social media induced rage, actual rage and that just barely treading water feeling we all have trying to keep up with the frenetic energy that is life in our modern age. Even our playlists are an unholy jukebox of musical psychosis cobbled together by the random songs we heard on TikTok, that song from that commercial, and that one that was playing during some YouTube video. Vinyl forces you to reevaluate your relationship with music and more importantly, it forces you to slow down.

First you must select a record from your collection. Maybe you’ve alphabetized them, maybe you haven’t, either way you have to go to your collection, sift through it and pull out the one you want. This process alone is meditative, take deep breaths while you’re doing this and tell me if you don’t already feel better. You’ve got your record, slip it out of the jacket, give it a twirl - ‘cause why not – and place it on the turn table. If you’re somewhat obsessive like me, you’ll give the album a light dust wipe-down before moving the needle over and dropping the tone arm to start the music. It’s a ritual, its intentional and know it or not, your heart rate is already slowing down.

The average side of a record contains 18 – 22 minutes of music. That’s not a huge commitment, right? You can give 20 minutes to something. Want to skip to a different track? Technically, you can – you have to lift the tone arm, position the needle over the track you want, drop the tone arm … but why bother? Just let the whole thing play. Check it – there’s that song you love that caused you to by this damn thing in the first place. But what’s this? You’ve never heard this track before and man-o-man, its good! The slight popping of dust alerts you Side A is done, time to flip the record, the ritual repeats itself. Maybe you danced a little during your favorite track, maybe you just sipped your morning coffee while the music softly resonated from your speakers, maybe you got dressed for the day while the record spun. Whatever you were doing, you just spent 20 to 40 minutes disconnected, in your happy place intentionally interacting with something you love!

One of my favorite bands and one of my favorite records of theirs. Never released in the United States, “Off the Bone” is a quasi-Best of record from these horror-punk rockers.

You Own the Media

This one might be bigger than vinyl’s ability to slow things down. In today’s digital world of subscriptions and impermanence, you own nothing and it could be gone in the blink of an eye. We’ve seen streaming services remove albums without warning (licensing disputes, artist requests, corporate decisions), entire services shut down (like Google Play Music), or content get region-locked. When you “buy” digital music or movies, you’re often just licensing access that can be revoked. Physical ownership means no company can take it away from you. And then there’s the never-ending treadmill of new and constantly increasing subscription fees.

On a monthly basis, streaming feels affordable, but you’re perpetually paying for access without ever building equity. Stop paying and you lose everything. Over a lifetime, you might spend thousands with nothing tangible to show for it. Physical media means once you buy it, it’s yours permanently without ongoing costs. And now we’re going to move into the Terminator-esque, the-machines-are-in-control-of-everything of you owning it.

Streaming platforms curate what gets surfaced, what’s on playlists, even what order songs appear in albums. They’re intermediaries between you and the art. Owning media means experiencing it on your terms, not filtered through corporate interests or engagement metrics. Walk into a record store and on the first things you’re going to notice if the recommendations of informed curators – the staff. Handwritten cards or face-to-face conversations with knowledgeable store employees create a mentorship dynamic that doesn’t really exist in streaming. You’re getting filtered through someone’s taste and expertise rather than aggregate data. And the genre/artist deep-dives that happen naturally when you’re flipping through a section - you might discover a whole label’s catalog or a producer’s body of work just by physical proximity on the shelf, which reveals connections streaming interfaces often hide. Vinyl is the antidote to algorithmic isolation - you’re getting human curation and serendipity instead of being in your own personalized content bubble. This naturally leads to my third reason you should start collecting vinyl and that is for the community.

Community

Missing from so many of our communities these days, especially in more rural communities, as where I live, are those third places - record stores are a third place. Record stores function like coffee shops or bookstores used to, as communal gathering spots where people with shared interests naturally cross paths. You strike up conversations about what you’re holding, get recommendations, debate pressings. It creates social ties in neighborhoods that might otherwise lack them, which research suggests is important for wellbeing and community cohesion. It also serves as a severely lacking generational bridge.

Vinyl culture is one of the few hobbies where teenagers, middle-aged collectors, and older folks interact as equals. Younger collectors learn from people who bought these records new, older collectors discover contemporary music through younger fans. It breaks down age segregation that’s pretty pervasive in modern life. Unlike online music communities that are diffuse and global, vinyl brings you into relationship with your physical community. You’re supporting local businesses, meeting local people, participating in something rooted in place. All communities have a learning curve with their rituals and language, and vinyl collecting is no exception. It’s easy to think of Jack Black’s obnoxious character in Hi-Fidelity when you think of your typical record collector, but I assure you most of us are welcoming and want to share your knowledge with ours!

Hopefully by now I’ve convinced you that vinyl records specifically and physical media more broadly is where all of us need to be. We need something that slows us down in our social-media driven, 24-hour news cycle world. The world is going to continue to change in ways we are just starting to understand and if we are to survive what is in front of us, we’re going to need community and dammit … I refuse to lose one more album by my favorite band because Apple or Spotify lost the rights. So what did I forget? What do you think is a major reason folks should collect records or do you think I’m off my rocker and digital is the way to go? Tell me below in the comments! Hope to see you at the record store!!