Featured Essay: My Fraught Romance: the pains and purity of listening to vinyl records

by Mat Mills

I have a love/hate relationship with vinyl. I hate how much it’s increased in price, how certain popular artists release versions of their new release in numbers rivaling comic book variant covers, and how that inevitably leads to the idea of a commodified ‘collection’ - meticulously ordered, sealed, and possibly, most sadly, unplayed; left to marvel at and increase in value (in theory). 

Records are meant to be played but in playing there are problems too: the skips, scratches and surface noise, sure, but also what playing entails: finding the record in a compressed deck of hard-to-read narrow spines (my eyes aren’t what they used to be), cleaning them (I’ve never managed to do this properly), and then turning them over at prescribed intervals during playing. The last part sounds like a lazy complaint, but honestly, in a busy home with two kids racing about constantly, there’s a real risk that the end of side one spells the end of the record, that my hands will be too tied up with cooking, cleaning the kitchen, re-softening play dough (!)…etc. to act; that the momentary silence is a tacit signal that the TV can be turned on or all hell can break loose in the living room. 

So, why on earth do I still feel compelled to buy vinyl records? I still do, pretty frequently. (My most recent purchases at the time of writing in Autumn 2024 were the beguiling Spell Blanket collected demos by Broadcast, and Aluminium’s superb Fully Beat). To answer that question, it feels like I need to look through my relatively small yet beloved assortment, variously scattered throughout the house. 

When I do, what hits me first is less the records themselves, but the times in my life they evoke. Sebadoh - Harmacy - inevitably bought at the mighty Vinyl Exchange in the late 90s or early 2000s- a true Manchester institution, still going strong for second-hand CDs and vinyl, and our regular weekend meeting place as 15-year-olds pre-mobile phone, where a meeting of unfixed time would turn into free hours of pleasurable record/CD shopping with a pocket money budget before returning to one of our houses to listen collectively to some of the haul. The record annoyingly skips on the amazing On Fire. 

Sonic Youth - Halloween/Flower (12” single) - bought at similar time, the shock and thrill of the topless image on the cover to my teenage sensibilities and the gorgeous translucent yellow vinyl, together a perfect metaphor for the strange beauty of early SY. This was a treasure from the moment I laid eyes on it, and I still remember the exact shelf in Vinyl Exchange’s basement where it was nestled waiting for me. 

Mogwai - Come On Die Young and Sonic Youth - Experimental Jet Set Trash and No Star (translucent blue). These were both Christmas 2000 gifts from my then girlfriend, and I still vividly recall opening them in my teenage bedroom on Christmas Eve and CODY turning as we listened intently and innocently lay on my bed, the quiet parts punctuated by our excited thoughts about the festive season and perhaps a future that might lie ahead. As I’ve never quite mastered the ability to clean my records, there will almost certainly be dust left in the grooves from that room and those conversations. That record firmly remains a ‘winter record’ in my mind, and I’m transported back each time the needle hits the crackly surface of what has always been a static-loaded copy. Despite my love of CDs, I don’t think this memory would hold quite the same meaning, were it not for the beautifully revolving record on the turntable.  

Radiohead - I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings - I bought two copies of this at the same time, one for a dear friend who was going through a tough time and I recall their surprise and joy at me turning up unannounced at their house with a copy. The acoustic version of True Love Waits on this is spectacular.  

So what does all of this tell me other than highlighting a longing for the free time of youth where I could listen away the hours without a shred of guilt or abdication of responsibility? Well, it makes me wonder if when I buy and then listen to a new album on vinyl, I’m inviting that music into that sacred space - a zone for being fully absorbed in the music, no matter how time-limited that experience might be these days. This might be why I reserve most of my vinyl purchases these days to recordings or artists that are already special to me (be they old ‘friends’ who have kept me company for decades or new obsessions). Perhaps, I’m adding to a small and sacred accumulation of objects and memories in the hope of making more memories. And undoubtedly, I’m aiming to inculcate in my children how I think we ought to listen to music - well, actually, more fundamentally, that music ought to be  ‘listened to’ rather than ‘flicked through’. 

There are small victories in this benevolent brain-washing quest: my 3-year-old recently said he wanted to put on a ‘vinyl record’ and I’m ridiculously proud that my 9-year-old knows the difference between CDs, Vinyl and Cassettes and doesn’t just think music falls out of the sky (partly helped by him seeing me arduously recording guitar and synth parts and his own piano lessons!). I’ve also found that board games and Lego are ideal for communal vinyl listening - and the 9-year-old is well-trained at handling the turntable and performing a timely flip!

So perhaps, when I’m long gone, the kids might leaf through a cobwebbed box of my records and find something they remember, maybe Yo La Tengo, or Hood - two of my most beloved and frequently played bands. Maybe, they’ll put one on and say ‘I’m sure Dad used to play this when we were building Lego’ and it could be that some of the dust and residue from these special times of their childhood will still turn as dust in the grooves. 

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Mat Mills records lofi indie/dream pop as Goodbye Wudaokou. His debut album, Mirror Skies, can be found on BandCamp. He released an ambient electronic album under the name Irkya on Wormhole World in February 2025. He’s from Manchester, UK.