In the days leading up to this year's Record Store Day on April 19, the OpenAir hosts will share the story of their first-ever record purchases, however memorable or misguided they may have been. Next up is weekend host Scott Carney.
We want to know what your first record was, too! Be sure to enter the Record Store Day contest on our Facebook page by telling us your first ever record purchase (vinyl, CD, digital or whatever), and you could win a brand new record player and a collection of vinyl records.
I received the LP as a Christmas present from a friend in 2005, and I can confidently say my musical habits were forever changed from that moment on. Like most of my favorite albums, it didn’t “click” with me during my first few listens. While enjoyable, I couldn’t quite see why it was being heralded as a modern classic.
When I began to research the album a few months later, I stumbled upon a Japanese website that featured clips of the hyper-obscure samples DJ Shadow used in their original context. This was before the ubiquity of YouTube, so something like that was unique and truly eye-opening. It was like learning the secrets of a magician – though the mystique was somewhat diminished – hearing how all these disparate pieces came together in such an organic and seamless whole was a revelation. It taught me the joys of digging through dusty crates on Saturday afternoons, constantly on a quest for the weird, wild and wonderful.
It’s a record that I can listen to dozens of times and still hear nuances I’ve never noticed before. Even after nearly 20 years, it still sounds as fresh as the day it was released, serving as a loving and lasting monument to all things vinyl.
