Blasts from the Past

To be right up front, I was a teenager of the ‘70s. Yes, the 1970s, previous century.

Now I am going to resist the urge to regale you with tales of how we had to get up to change the 5 channels on the TV, or how our one telephone had a big dial on it and you could only walk as far as the cord would allow. I never walked to school as a child, even though it was uphill, both ways. The picture I am painting for you is that we did not have all of the modern distractions to occupy our attention. As teenagers, a majority of our time was spent just hanging out and listening to the radio, tuned to an AM top 40 station.

I know plenty of people who still have boxes of the vinyl LPs (giant black CDs) of their youth in their basements. The memories lie, unplayed for decades, waiting to be awakened. If people still have their old turntables, the needles are so old and crusted with time that they are just as likely to tear the records to shreds as to release their secrets. Never fear, citizens of the 21^st Century, salvation is at hand.

There are companies that sell USB turntables that hook up to your computer. You can play your records on them, through your computer speakers. You can also use software to “rip” the songs into .mp3 files that can play on your computer or music device. The trouble is that unless you have treated your LPs delicately over the years or never played them when you were 15 and irresponsible, they are likely scratched and won’t play well. Also, ripping in all those songs could be a long and tedious process.

Along come music downloads! Online services such as iTunes™, Amazon™, Napster™ etc. will allow you to go through their extensive music libraries and purchase the tunes you so sorely have missed. It can be a great trip down memory lane, but also an expensive one if you have a large catalogue of memories.

The latest additions to online sources of music are subscription streaming services. Using these services, you can set up an account, either for free or for a monthly fee, and “stream” songs to listen to. With some, like Pandora™, you can set up a “station” that will play an assortment of music based on your taste, and then make suggestions that you can vote on. Eventually it becomes a fine tuned online radio station based on your own taste. Newer players in this area are services like Spotify™ where you can search their staggeringly large library and create playlists of just the songs you want. Cleaning the house and having a serious Barry Manilow craving? Ok, maybe that’s a bad example. But if you were, you could click up pretty much his entire discography and reminisce away.

So, dust off those LPs, wait for the kid’s giggles to die down and get those memories back, 21^st Century style. I’m going to start up Spotify™ and make an ELO playlist.