[agentwiggles]

I totally understand this, but it's something like vinyl. Yeah, the vinyl doesn't have the same sound quality, but there's something about the little crackles and pops, that warm fuzzy sound in the background that gives me, well, a warm fuzzy feeling. Dropping the needle on Stairway to Heaven is just a different experience.

I choose that example in particular because LZ IV is one of the first albums I ever heard on vinyl. My dad had an old crate of records and a truly bitchin stereo setup that he let me dig out and set up in my room in my teens. He had told me the story of the first time he heard Stairway (in his friend's basement, on vinyl) and it just seemed like a fitting first run.

I also vividly remember the first time I heard The Yes Album, also on that stereo. The opening bars of Yours Is No Disgrace made an immediate impression on me and I had a burned CD of the album on repeat in my car for the next month.

This post is already way longer than I intended, but my dad's record collection was also how I realized that he had been a stoner as a young man. The various Pink Floyd, King Crimson, and Santana records should have been enough of a hint, but it was when I found his copy of Cheech and Chong's Big Bambu, and a conspicuously missing giant rolling paper, that I had the realization.