Whether you’re busy studying, working out, relaxing, or out with friends and having a good time, music can set the mood. Built-in speakers and aux cords are great vectors for music, but there’s also a tried and true. Often overlooked music medium that can totally change the way you listen to your favorite tunes: record players and vinyl albums.
But, before we get into vinyl jargon, let’s begin with the basics. Vinyl albums are essentially flat disks made of plastic that play music.
These vinyl albums, often called records, are played when a needle is placed at the edge of the record and it follows the grooves of the vinyl album.
The most popular type of record seen today is a 33 ⅓ RPM vinyl. There are many types of records, the other major vinyls being the 45 and 78 RPM disks. RPM, or revolutions per minute, are the main differences between the main types of vinyls- as a record spins, it spins a certain number of times per minute. 78 records, the oldest of the trio, spins 78 times per minute. 45 records spin 45 times a minute, and 33 ⅓ records spin 33 ⅓ times a minute.
Many turntables and record players can play all three, but most of the newer albums are 33 ⅓ records.
If you are interested in collecting vinyl albums, these are a few key terms to know:
LP– An LP, or “long playing” record is a record that has multiple songs, generally a whole album.
EP– While an “extended playing” record sounds like it would be longer than an LP, it isn’t. It’s confusing, I know. An EP is usually much shorter than an LP, meaning it has less songs than its LP counterpart. EPs are usually cheaper, but that’s because there are less
The cool thing about records is that if they are well-kept, they can essentially last forever. I have a few Beach Boys records from the 60s and 70s that I got from my grandfather, and even though they have minor scratches, they play just as well as my Orville Peck “Pony” record that came out in 2019.
Music is an integral part of my identity, and I never really knew how intentionally searching and looking for certain records and albums could change music for me. I thought I couldn’t love it any more than I already did. There’s just something different about pulling a record out of its sleeve, placing it on a turntable and delicately lowering the needle down. It can connect you to the past, it can connect you to the present, and the timelessness of vinyl records can even transport you to the future.