I have a constant argument with one of my sons. The boy, who will be 20 this winter, is vintage sick. Walking around in Wrangler jeans. Shoots with old film cameras. When he edits videos, he uses an effect that simulates a VHS tape from the eighties. And of course also in music, he prefers his sounds on coils. or records. Or any other format you can hold in your hand. I completely understand his need for a tangible product, within the digital and faceless world he was born into.
But my argument, and it is the one that creates the eternal debate between us, is that returning to old technology constitutes an artificial act, which goes against the way of nature. Something that may provide an answer to longing, or be a nice gimmick, but not mark a new and significant process. After all, the technological improvements resulted from a certain mass need, otherwise they would not have caught on. So why go against evolution?
Think, for example, about digital photography, compared to film photography. It’s true, the diehards will find unique qualities in the old model. But for the vast majority of people, current technology is superior in every parameter – convenience, price, availability, etc. My son, who is not a sucker, claims in response that throughout human culture there have been retro processes that have enriched the present. It has been said, the whole idea of the Renaissance was to revive the classical period. And this revival produced a cultural improvement compared to the then present, which was the Middle Ages.
For me, this debate boils down to one particular point, which makes me – roughly speaking – a severe case of schizophrenia. Or, if you will, ambivalence. And I’m talking about the revival of vinyl. On the one hand, I remember with incredible clarity the enthusiasm for the idea of a compact disc, which would replace the record. The fact that you don’t need to change sides, that there is no fear of scratches and no need to clean, and that you can even transfer songs by remote control, seemed to me at the time no less than a miracle. And from the moment I switched formats, I haven’t looked back even once. That’s why the renewed desire to make it difficult for yourself as a music consumer seems almost ridiculous to me. I bought a turntable a few years ago, following a trend, and very quickly it began to gather dust. The practice was too clumsy.
But from the second past, something in this renewed involvement in the world of records was played on strings that had long since rusted. This movement, of flipping through records in a store; And even walking down the street with a flapping plastic bag with heavy vinyl inside, all of these seem to me like an inseparable part of me who was just waiting for the wake-up call. And I’m really torn between the old, sweet pleasure, and the contemporary voice that tells me – Shit, it’s ridiculous (yes. My contemporary voice also speaks like in the 80s).
This week this conflict reached a boiling point, when I added to the old CD the reissue of Punch’s debut album (on the label “Black Gold” from the third ear). A piece that when it came out 30 years ago shook my heart, and since then I have not heard it as an organic and continuous album, for the simple taste that never It didn’t come out in a CD version, or a digital album. I was very scared, before I put the needle on it. Like a moment before meeting a childhood sweetheart. Longing and time paint everything in such bright colors that you can only be disappointed.
But from the moment when Ellie’s guitar started sawing the way to “Adina”, until Shlomi Rosenblum’s last Kongs beat in “Eddie”, an infinite smile took over my face. Even the moment I switched sides. The impossible punchy connection between bursting power and introverted androgyny still enchants me. And in the third track, “I’m in love with a girl from Bat Yam”, I screamed the good old “O O” with Yossi Babliki, in decibels that reached as far as Holon.
The attached bonus disc, with initial demos of the songs and a few other hits I haven’t heard in ages like “Jackie”, already won me over for good. Then I realized that my son was right. There is no essential difference between repeating the music you grew up listening to, and the technology that plays it. As long as you Doing it out of true enjoyment, and not out of submission to a trend