Doodle a day #19: We went to Worcester today, and I spent some time in HMV looking at records.
It was like 1983 all over again when I used to spend hours moving from one record shop to another flicking through the racks. Flick, flick, flick. Knowing at a glance if I was interested or not. Pausing occasionally to check the price; To lift out an empty sleeve and flip it over to examine the track listings before returning it to its slot and carrying on. Flick, flick, flick...
And they are so beautifully tactile. Glossy sleeves, Matt sleeves. Gate folds. Cut outs. Textures that the cases of cassettes and CDs hid behind they clear plastic barriers. Inner sleeves with their hidden secrets. Printed lyrics, photos, or extra artwork, or if you are lucky a large booklet with all three.. And you carefully slid the record from the sleeves and treated them with a care not extended to cassettes and CDs.
Along came cassettes, then CDs, downloads and streaming. Records vanished from all but collectors fairs and niche stores. But HMV now has rows and rows of them, and each time I go in there seems to be a larger section.
I never dreamt that I would ever be in a high street shop flicking through racks and racks of records again.
