Francie Quinn 1st blog for MYCookstown

Wednesday 10th July 2013

Francie Quinn 1st blog for MYCookstown
I am officially old. I have been in denial on the matter for quite a while despite the growing amount of evidence from my creaking knees, greying temples and hairy ears. However the other day, when I heard myself use the phrase 'young people nowadays...', I knew the jig was up.
 
I think I was talking about how 'young people nowadays' probably have little understanding of the concept of buying a music album, be it on vinyl, tape or CD. Obviously it's all about downloading songs these days, which is fair enough,but it's not the same. if I really like a group, or a singer, I want to buy their CD, I need the actual physical object to be in my possession, so I can hold it and smell it, maybe even lick it should I feel the urge! I want to study the cover and read the sleeve-notes and peruse the lyrics. And then it joins the hundreds of others on the specially constructed shelves beside the stereo, or possibly the pile on the coffee table, or the pile in the kitchen, or the pile in the bedroom, (expect to see me popping up on 'The Hoarder Next Door' anyday now).
 
Speaking of the stereo, that's another thing, I don't think listening to a song on a mobile  phone or on your laptop is quite as good as playing it through a good Hi-Fi with speakers big enough to double as wardrobes. In this matter at least, size does matter!
 
Apart from the tactile pleasures associated with owning an album I think there is also a social dimension which 'young people nowadays' are missing out on. One of the best things about going to visit someone's house was the chance to have a nosey through their record collection. It was also a very useful thing to do because you could learn a lot about them and their potential compatability as a friend/lover/neighbour. If, for example, those wee shelfs under the radiogram were filled mainly with the complete works of The Jive Bunny, James Last and Richard Clayderman, you knew it was time to make your excuses and back slowly towards the door. And then contemplate changing your phone number, moving house and having a sex-change operation!
 
There were, it seemed, certain albums which  appeared in everybody's collection, regardless of whether they had ever bought them or not - The Best of Simon and Garfunkel, The Eagles Greatest Hits(with the blue cover) and The Sound of Music soundtrack. Girls,in my limited experience, always had Carole King's 'Tapestry' album as well. Their appearance was a mystery and throwing them out was futile as they would somehow have reappeared next time you were flicking through.
 
Conversely,  there were always albums you could never find, no matter how many times you bought them. Or maybe that only happened to me?
Somehow I don't think looking through the tunes on somebody's I-Pod is a equally satisfying, or informative, experience but maybe you disagree?
 
Please feel free to share your thoughts and memories. Do you still buy albums? Do you miss the record-shops of yore? Maybe you prefer to download?Let us know here at MyCookstown.com - Just leave a comment below and hit submit.
 
In any case, that's enough rambling down memory lane from me- I have to go arrange my Horslips CDs into alphabetical order. So ciao for now.