In read­ing about iTunes and why it’s a dis­ease, I was reminded that mp3 com­pres­sion is an abom­i­na­tion of sound qual­ity. Inspired, and look­ing for a place to get tick­ets for The Grog Shop’s Minus Story show, I bought Destroyer’s This Night on CD at Music Saves, a tiny and tidy lit­tle record store next to The Beach­land Ball­room (15801 Water­loo Rd., (216) 481‑1875). Small as it is, their vinyl selec­tion includes The Uni­corns and Panda Bear, which is enough to sug­gest how per­fectly suited they are for me. How it took me so long to hear about this place is a mystery.

Arriv­ing home I wanted to expe­ri­ence my new favorite album in its intended fidelity, but that proved impos­si­ble with a generic lap­top sound­card and a $25 pair of Sony head­phones. I quickly decided I needed a real CD player and bet­ter head­phones, before real­iz­ing that I was over­look­ing a huge dis­par­ity, ask­ing myself, “Why did I buy this CD?” Well, to sup­port Dan Bejar, to pos­sess the album’s ele­gant art­work in phys­i­cal form, and for the pris­tine, shiny, reflec­tive tran­scrip­tion of sound. “And how will I use the CD?” Well, I’ll shelve it…sometimes it’ll be in my car I guess, play­ing out of bro­ken speakers…it’s already on my iPod at 160kbps, but I guess I might rip it if some­one needs it…and if I’m really in the mood, yeah, I’ll pull out my CD player and my new head­phones if I ever get any.

All these rea­sons point to buy­ing vinyl. CDs are only supe­rior in terms of porta­bil­ity, but mp3s make them laugh­able on that front. Records are usu­ally only a few dol­lars more than CDs and are offered by most labels on their web­site. The album art is larger and, if prop­erly cared for, the sound qual­ity is bet­ter. Not to men­tion the obvi­ous psy­cho­log­i­cal advan­tages. And this makes you won­der more…

Why don’t they include CDs with vinyl? The discs them­selves can’t cost more than a dol­lar to make. At the very least, how about a pass­word to down­load high-bitrate mp3s for burn­ing or iPodding?

Even with­out these con­ve­niences, I can’t think of many rea­sons to spend money on CDs again. They now occupy this awk­ward mid­dle ground that cas­settes did when CDs were intro­duced. So while in Chicago this week­end, I picked up Destroyer’s City of Daugh­ters, Noto­ri­ous Light­ning and Other Works, and Mogwai’s Gov­ern­ment Com­mis­sions (2xLP), all for $36 at Reck­less Records, the sin­gle best place for new vinyl I’ve ever been (the lat­ter two records being dis­played on the wall along­side Sil­ver Mt. Zion, M. Ward, Dead Meadow, Black Dice, Six Organs of Admit­tance, etc., etc.). On Broad­way near Bel­mont. Highly recommended.

And if I haven’t con­vinced you to join me in turn­ing a CD col­lec­tion into a record col­lec­tion, read­ing The Vinyl Anachro­nist at Per­fect Sound For­ever will.