A gift from me to me, with love

As a birthday gift from me to me, I decided to bite the bullet and bought myself something that I wanted for a very, very long time - a real record player so I can still play my old vinyl collection. Even better, I found something online - a nostalgic replica of an old fashioned radio with record player on top (under the roof) with added CD and cassette player so nothing has to stay in dusty boxes anymore and I can indulge in cherishing my old collection. 

In my childhood, we had something very similar in the kitchen - it was an old fashioned radio and once you open the top, there was a record player there. I had discovered music via this old, crappy record player and played my singles non stop (the ones I got for the seventh birthday), later built a cute little vinyl collection that unfortunately got lost, along with many other things. Now as i opened some old boxes, I see some old LPs and was thinking "I might as well find some record player, since I still have records". And not just records, I also own cassettes and CDs because I am coming from another time when listeners were actually buying music in order to listen to it - there were no streaming services online, where is enough if you only know the title of the song - no sir, in my time you had to walk to a record store and browse with dusty fingers until you find something that appeals to you. 

Spotify had changed all of this and now we listen our music differently. I have almost completely stopped listening to the radio but I still enjoy Podcasts. So now when I have a brand new record player, I decided not just to dust off my old vinyl collection but to treat myself with occasional browsing in a second hand shops, which are very popular here.  In fact, I browsed today - and for the first time I was happy because I could actually purchase something. There were some self-imposed rules:

- nothing that is already available on Spotify (what would be the point)

- only the records that were never released on CD

- nothing too expensive (its only nostalgic hobby, after all)

- maximum € 10 at once

- records must be in passable condition 

- if possible, try to build the same collection I once had (that would be neat)

And immediately I am faced with the fact that my LP collection is hopelessly old-fashioned and uncool. But this is who I am. And my uncoolness is the deliberate part of my personality, since I always followed my own path and declined to follow the herd. This means that my collection will be mostly 1960s and 1970s oldies and this is perfectly fine by me, since it makes me happy. I did listen to my CDs from time to time, but now is the first time that I listened my old cassette tapes since 2004. That was exactly 20 years ago! The sound - must admit - is not the same as on some first class stereo system but to be honest, its perfectly fine for my little study room and the idea is simply to enjoy my old collection, not to impress anybody. + I am going deaf anyway + I don't need super clean sound for my collection of 1920s blues. There is a Blue tooth option so eventually I might figure it out, so far I tried to connect it to my Iphone and got spotify playing on the record player instead the other way around ha ha, well it takes some time. Happy Birthday to me!