The Dollyrots are a great band we have listed here on MarsBands. They just got a little greater. Last week The Dollyrots announced that they will come out with their 4th album. Big whoop, right? Well, they simultaneously announced they were doing it independently, meaning, no more Mr. Record Company. That’s pretty cool. That also means they need to raise the money to make the album.
I would suggest if you are a fan of this amazing band and haven’t already done so, go drop a couple dollars their way. It’s one thing to promote a band, but for some reason it’s more fun to promote a band who is breaking away from the pack and doing things their own way. And to make things even cooler, they recently announced that they are making a vinyl version of the new album! In case you didn’t know, vinyl is the best way to listen to music, and it just so happens that I’m not alone in the belief.
I can remember when I was younger listening to my dad’s records. It’s what first got me into music. I had a few CDs of various bands, but I was never really that into music. But when I started listening to the records, I found a new appreciation for music. At the time I had no idea why I suddenly became infatuated with music, I just knew that for whatever reason, the music I was listening to was great, despite the fact that the bands I was listening to were 30 and 40 years old.
Now, of course, I know why I liked those records and why the music seemingly sucked me in. It was the records themselves. Sure, listening to Led Zeppelin, Steppenwolf, The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones probably had something to do with it, but I couldn’t get over how awesome the records sounded compared to the CDs I had. It was like the band was right there with me in the room. The warm fuzzy sound and the occasional pops and clicks were so inviting, and as I reminisce, I have to wonder why anyone would ever want to listen to a CD.
Now I’m not going to sit here and try to tell you that records are the superior medium and all that jazz. Obviously, in terms of technical specs, accurate sound reproduction, portability, and the amount of information that can be stored, CDs take the cake. But music from a CD just seems to be too “perfect”. Everything is crystal clear, looped, compressed, formatted, in other words, destroyed. Many people would use the aforementioned adjectives as good things about CDs, but not me. Give me the skips, the pops, the clicks, the fuzzy warmth which makes me feel like the band is playing just for me. Keep your crystal clear CDs which make the music sound fake.
And obviously I’m not the only one who feels this way, otherwise The Dollyrots wouldn’t even bother making a vinyl record, nor would Gaslight Anthem, The Kills, The Subways… the list goes on. In fact, an article from USA Today in Feb. of this year says exactly what I’m saying now. Vinyl is making a comeback. Not among the hippie burn-outs and other 40, 50 and 60 year olds, but among the teens and twenty-somethings, even if for the wrong reasons. The article seems to imply that the younger generation is buying vinyl now because of it’s retro appeal, basically, because it’s hip. One can only hope that once they get home and listen to the record, they’ll want to go out and get more, not to be part of the hipster crowd, but because it just sounds better.
