brownlow wrote:The journey to the record store, the interaction with shop staff, a record which might have been playing in the store, artwork, the bus journey on the way, any premeditative thought before arriving at the store, the various other processes involved in crate-digging, etc. etc. etc.
In the physicality of a vinyl record there is always some kind of journey involved (literally and/or metaphorically) which I believe leads to a deeper connection between the "selector" and the listeners when it comes for the time for that record to be played, consciously or subconsciously. And these journeys (as many journeys do result from each record), as well as the pit-stops made at home, are shared.
You are right about this, I also miss this sometimes, but even if I played vinyl today, I wouldn't have this, because we have no physical recordstores in Denmark with electronic music, so I would still be sitting at home ordering on the internet.
brownlow wrote:
Imagine the British Library not existing, for example, because it's all been scanned and squished into an Amazon Kindle, making it easier for everyone. How soulless and what a complete disregard for history would that be?
I would be surprised if they are not already scanning everything. There are big plans in Denmark to do this, mainly because old books don't last forever and they want to make sure that the history is available in the future too (=scanning and availability in the future)