5. Return To ForeverNo Mystery
This is the first used vinyl I ever bought. My parents had it in the house and I wanted my own copy. It’s the classic powerhouse lineup of Chick Corea, Al Di Meola, Stanley Clarke and Lenny White. All the members wrote songs on this record, my favourite being ‘Sofistifunk’ by Lenny White. There are some major chops here, bringing out the inner marching band geek in me every time I hear it.
I’m still a vinyl guy. I don’t have Spotify, sometimes I’ll buy records on iTunes, but I’m still a rabid vinyl collector. I still only listen to the vinyl if I can. It’s not that I’m committed – in fact, it’s kind of a pain in the ass, carrying around records and digging through second-hand shops… and I’m not an audiophile at all – definitely not – but I feel like I listen to music differently on vinyl. It doesn’t just show up in your inbox and you throw it into iTunes, walking to the store with your little white earbuds in, barely listening. You can’t put a record on and then just go clean a room for an hour and a half.
I have Technics 1200s, of course, two of ’em. I still have a CD Walkman somewhere, but I’d have to put batteries in it. My laptop doesn’t even have a CD drive any more. I have to use an external drive. I’ll get a bunch of CDs and throw them into iTunes then toss the CDs away. I also have a sports cassette Walkman that works, but I’d have to put batteries into that too. I have a couple of suitcases filled with cassettes, stuffed up in storage. I’ll swear I’m going to digitise them and of course I never do.
