What would our lives be without music?
Never mind: it is impossible to imagine.
Over the past century-plus, we’ve gone from exclusively experiencing music live, to cylinders and discs, to wire recordings and live via wireless broadcasts before long-playing vinyl, tape, virtual digital sound and CD emerged.
For many of us the LP (or “record”) was—and still is—a godsend.
Nearly an hour of music presented as if it were a stage production, with an opening act, an intermission and a final act. We supply the engagement of our imaginations, moved to the core of our beings by pure sound, and are captivated much as if treated to a private performance or reading a good book. The LP introduced us to stories of musical sound in a context beyond one-off songs and allowed us to indulge our predilections as well as to amass appreciation for bodies of works.
LPs are durable and safe from technological obsolescence: because they can be played mechanically by merely spinning on a spindle and amplified acoustically without electricity via a needle and attached cone or horn they were included in our more ambitious interstellar space explorations.
This is not to mention the often superior sound quality that many swear by, which keeps the venerable LP alive to this day.
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