Vinyl

Listen to Jonathan talking about why he prefers to buy records.

Do the preparation task first. Then listen to the audio and do the exercises.

Transcript

OK. Well, I want to talk about vinyl. Why? Well, I'm sat here, which you can't see, but I'm sat here holding a new record. Everyone's just laughed at me because I still buy vinyl records. Not very often, but if I can get them, I buy them. Everyone laughs 'cause, 'Oh, you've got CDs, we've got MP3s, we've got this, we've got that, we download. Why do you still buy vinyl?' Well, one reason is the sound. If you've got a good record player, nothing, but nothing, sounds as good as vinyl. MP3s have got this awful, tinny, strangulated sound where, kind of, the bass, the space is missing. So I'm kind of sat here, waving my vinyl record at the microphone. I'll have to wait a while to play it 'cause I don't have a record player. But there you go – when I hear it, it will be worth it.

I've always bought records and I really like music. All my early records were in vinyl and one of the things that I like when I get them out the boxes at home is there's a thing there. There's a big picture, you can look at it, you open it out.

You download something, it's, it's come and gone. I think for a lot of people now music isn't as special as it was, say, when I was younger, which was quite a long time ago. So, people in the 60s, in the 70s, in the 80s, music was just really special. You'd go to the shop and you'd have to save up to buy your records because they were quite expensive, so you didn't download hundreds and hundreds of tracks one after the other. You'd maybe buy, from school, we'd save dinner money or do little jobs. And then maybe once a month you could, kind of, go into town, find a good record shop – one that would let you listen to the records – you'd listen to two or three records in the shop, have a think, have a talk with the shop assistant and then you'd make your purchase. 

It was really exciting. You'd get this … maybe I need to explain, because, for younger people, you got this big vinyl record which is about 12 inches across, so you had a big thing to look at, and when you got it home, open up, and there was bits inside it, pictures to look at, little bits of information on the cover, which were like little messages from another world. It was just really special, which … I('ve) got lots of downloads, I've got CDs, but the music's still great but, they're not special any more. It's like they've just become … it's just another product. I think, for most people, it's just another product.

Discussion

Download
Worksheet79.6 KB

Language level

Average: 4.3 (3 votes)

Submitted by KR on Sat, 06/03/2021 - 15:33

Permalink
To be honest, I've never even thought of that. It's just seems so strange and bizzare to listen to a record, however, they do look cool. I'd love to have one on the wall!
Profile picture for user danisep

Submitted by danisep on Thu, 17/12/2020 - 21:13

Permalink
I think that I did but I didn’t ’remembered clearly, I was a kid when that, in my house my parents use to have vinyl's but they threw them away because in that moment nobody was using vinyl no more, just CDs, I love listen to music I don't thing that music sounds better on vinyl, and also is right yes you can buy music with more quality than other but a lot of that depends what kind of device is using to listen, I think that is about the experience, buy vinyl's is a better experience than just download a song or listening on Spotify or YouTube.

Submitted by ragamin on Sun, 31/05/2020 - 18:41

Permalink
He is REALLY emotional about vinyl discs and record players ... and the picture is not really relevant to the subject .
yeah ... that's right ... but the topic is about listening to the music not scratching ...

Submitted by parisaach on Mon, 08/07/2019 - 07:32

Permalink
I have never listened to a vynl record. I remember cassette tapes. When I was a kid we used cassette tapes to listen to the music. We recorded our voice on a cassette tape and really enjoyed it. Vynl belongs to generations before us. I really don't care about the quality of music I just like to listen to music every day. It does't mean that I don't care, but I never pay so much money to buy a device to listen to high quality music. I remember the time people used walkman they put cassette tapes on'em and carry'em everywhere. I've never had a walkman, but I had a mp3 player I was really happy when I bought it. I have always carried it in my pocket. Right at that time I bought my first cell phone, a motorola phone with really low memory to save music. I saved my most favorite songs on that phone and carried mp3 player beside of it. oh time flys now even CD players disappear.We can download everything we want on our phone or computers. I can have many tracks on my phone. Now people can have a mobile phone and they don't need to have a mp3 player, camera, etc.Now I listen to music using my airpods and it is really enough for me easily connect to my phone and can play everthing.