A shared love.

Today marked an exciting first. I opened my very first brand new record.
There are a few key words in that sentence. New and my.
Although Kent is so kind as to refer to the houses's record collection as ours, most all of the records present have been selected and purchased by him. And although we do honestly and genuinely share some serious favorites, there's a very wide number that are strictly his jam. 
But, there is a little place that I have carved out of my own on the record shelf. (Or maybe it's just mine because Kent totally ignores it.)
The last and dustiest cube, that isn't alphabetized, nor are they wearing protective sleeves. It is home to a great mish mash of WW2 era crooners, international intrumentals, a few oddities and a goodly amount of musical soundtracks like Zorba the Greek and Funny Girl*.
So as you see, I do have a few records that I have purchased or taken under my understanding wing as I would my own. But this is my first new record, that I picked out and paid full price for. Something of the quality that might be seen on the other shelves.
It's The Black Keys album called Brothers. And it's awesome and perfect, and Kent doesn't really like them, which makes this purchase even more awesome and perfect and mine.

 It was my first time taking the plastic off of a record sleeve and finding goodies inside like a bonus cd for the car, and a heap big poster. There was dancing in my jammies. Which is cool, because this isn't why I usually dance in my jammies.
This is a relatively new thing.
Kent of course has always been a purist when it comes to music sound quality, preferring records over cds or digital downloads.
And up until recently I mostly saw record listening as cute on him, and a pain and a nuisance in practice. (With all the little settings to adjust, the bits and bobs to move, the constant flipping, and dusting and putting away just so. Why not just push play on the computer and be done?)
But lately, I'm coming around. I won't pretend that I notice a huge difference in sound quality between digital and analog. It sounds good, and better louder, and that is as far as my knowledge takes me as of now.
But I will say that all the little extra care put into it actually seems to make the music experience richer. You have to be fully present to listen to a record. And that's a beautiful thing!
Or, because the world is better for food references, it's like the difference between enjoying a homemade meal, or ordering in those pizzas. Both are delicious, but I think that there is more satisfaction in the thing that requires care.
Or at least that's how I see it.
It's a new thrill. And it's fun to find a new love that we can share.

 
*Because, please, Barbra Streisand is awesome. Kent and I recently discussed that if we could have any person's singing ability in the whole world ever, that he would choose Freddy Mercury and I would choose my Barbra. This always makes me laugh to think about, because if that actually happened we would be the most hilariously over the top couple that ever sang Happy Birthday to their children.