Tag Archives: Records

Will paper books fade away out of existence?

I miss the past…

I miss the days record stores were the place to visit, where you could hold an LP in your hands and admire its artwork. Yes, the analog sound wasn’t the best, and a record could get scratched and skip, but there was a ritual to that shopping experience that made it more meaningful than simply “downloading files” into a little metallic box, which is what I do now.

It seems others too, miss this experience, as much as I do, for Record Store Day this past 21st of April was a great success. Sister Ray in Soho had queues going around the corner that morning as I walked past.

Then, there are books…

I do not own an e-book reader and  I have no intention of buying one.  I am sorry if that means I am going to miss out on reading a lot of authors, but to me, books are the last old-fashioned pleasure left.

I often go to Charing Cross Road, which is famous for its bookshops, to browse.  Sometimes I buy a book, sometimes I don’t, but even when I don’t purchase anything, the experience of looking around is just as pleasurable.

In this day and age of social media growth, nobody is noticing that some of the changes, aren’t for the best. Though lots of you will argue that point, telling me I am just old-fashioned.  Maybe it’s more practical and faster to download a music track or an e-book but that connection, that magical feel of picking up an LP or a book in your hands is not there.

Transitions are never easy. We humans living at this point in history are as unique as the Victorians who witnessed their world slowly disappear as cars replaced horse pulled carriages and electricity replaced gaslight. The change for them was gradual, as it has been for us, though technological advances are happening faster and faster. Maybe those writers of long ago, like Orwell, who wrote of a dismal Dystopian future are not that far off in their predictions.

There is great irony in the fact I am very good with computers and that I was one of the first online, as I have been since 1997. There’s even greater irony that I’m posting this on a blog ‘out there’ in that virtual world we appear to live in.

After I press ‘Publish’, I am turning this plastic/electric box off  for the rest of the day and I’m going out, into town, to spend the rest of my day browsing for books in a REAL bookshop…