They would probably be religious if they could afford the goats

I have been trying to de-clutter my house a bit. Getting rid of stuff or organising things differently. One thing I looked at very hard was my old stereo system, including turntable and the associated vinyl record collection. It has all been sitting stored in a cupboard for some time now. The philosophy with de-cluttering is "use it or lose it" - if it isn't something that you need then get rid of it. In the case of this old sound gear, so important to me in the past, I decided that perhaps I could still use it - a trial was necessary.

So a month or two back I freed up a couple of wider shelves in the library and set up turntable, amp and speakers as well as all that vinyl. Since then every so often I pull out an old album and have a listen. Usually something I'd never bothered to digitize. I know some people are still enamoured by the whole ritual of putting a vinyl LP on the turntable and love the hiss and crackle of the more "real" sound. To be honest, none of that really works for me. But it has been fun listening to the old music I had been neglecting.

Today I have been listening to an album by Steve Miro and the Eyes called Rude Intrusions. I do like the album and I played it a lot back in the day, but that isn't the reason I first bought it. I purchased it purely because of the album art. I didn't even listen to it before buying. I may have had a vague idea based on the back cover info, but that was it. What I got was an answer to the question - "What would Madness have sounded like if they came from Manchester".

So I don't miss the ritual and sound of vinyl, but I do find that I miss album cover art. Perhaps I should frame a few covers and hang them on the wall.