I've been a music junkie since before I had my driver's license - first a thousand or so cassettes, then nearly four thousand CDs and a handful of vinyl records over the years for whatever reason (with no way to play them) - but then for a while there it really went all MP3/FLAC for me. Loaded up the NAS with about a terabyte of all the back catalogs of everyone I'd ever liked and all that good stuff, but I never really seemed to listen to it anymore. I still listened to my CDs in the car and I still do, but it wasn't until I got a turntable last year that I really started getting back into music the way I USED to listen to it, which is a whole album at a time. When I was a cassette kid, I never rewound them - I left them out until I had played them to the end, just like you'd leave a bookmark in a book.

This past year I probably bought two dozen CDs but easily two hundred vinyl LPs and a couple dozen 7" singles for the jukebox I'd eventually like to have. I have a closet full of various sets of high end speakers and have tried all sorts of rigs but the truth of the matter is my hearing isn't that great and getting worse, so I stay out of the sound quality argument. I do like having the digital copies and keep a nice headphone amp and a couple pairs of cans in my desk at work so I can tune out the hens, but watching the record player spin with the album cover and lyric sheet in front of me is how I fell in love with music as a child and how I'm enjoying it once again. I'm singing a lot more too, and have stretched my range back nearly to the four octaves I had before I discovered cigarettes.

I'm slowly culling out the dead weight in my CD collection and the cassettes are long gone but, like pinball, vinyl has brightened my day. CDs though, for the bulk of the population, are dead. I bought a good friend a copy of a fantastic album I knew he'd love a few months back and when I finally asked how he liked it, he admitted he didn't have a CD player anywhere in his house or cars and hadn't heard it yet.

My dad had dubbed most of his favorite records onto a reel-to-reel so not to wear them out. Maybe that's the next step I should explore.

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You blew all your inheritance
And now you're trying to pin the blame on me
And I could write you off so easily
Except a hundred million other people agree
You kick and scream to get your way again
But the writing is on the wall
Any minute you'll go on to your reward
Someone else is gonna make the call

In these strange negotiations
Man they really are gettin' me down
Strange negotiations
Feel like a stranger in my hometown
Strange negotiations
You know I'm looking for a way around
All these strange negotiations

You cut your leg off to save a buck or two
Because you never consider the cost
You find the lowest prices every day
But would you look at everything that we've lost
And yeah, it's true, I learned it from watching you
But now it's you who doesn't know what a dollar is worth
You got the market its own bodyguard
And all the people are gettin' hurt

In these strange negotiations
Man they really are gettin' me down
Strange negotiations
Feel like a stranger in my hometown
Strange negotiations
You know I'm looking for a way around
All these strange negotiations

It’s on Terrarium TV, I’m watching it right now.

For what it's worth, the new Ghost album will be available on cassette, vinyl and 8-track.

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To be fair, it's an odd name for a Zeppelin cover band.

Which reminds me, have you seen the BBC documentary on R Kelly? I've loved his music but it's pretty much ruined for me at this point. Disgusting how that stuff gets pushed under the rug for a popular entertainer.

Pagan cultures sacrificed virgins to please their gods. So do we.