Gimme some scratch

Easing into the week lightly, I thought I’d share this fab discovery. You can play this loop of old scratchy LP sounds over any music playing on your computer and retreat into the innocent past. I have it enhancing, at the moment, The Smiths’ Meat Is Murder LP. I’m sure there are plenty of vinyl copies of it out there that sound just like what I’m hearing.

Meat Is Murder came out in 1985, before CDs really took off. Ronald Reagan had been inaugurated for the second time. Life seemed more innocent back then because I was much more innocent, and I’ve since learned that there’s always some manner of shit hitting the fan. We were mucking about in Central America in those days, causing all kinds of turmoil for blameless souls in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. The Cold War was in a hot zone. Terrorism was just as rampant as it is now, with journalists getting kidnapped and gunmen hijacking planes and boats (the Achille Lauro incident happened in ’85). Unemployment was 7.2%.

But we had The Smiths. And Talking Heads. And Blondie. And Dizzy Gillespie was still alive. And records had this great scratchy sound, if you really loved them and played them all the time.

Degrade your mp3’s and music streams with me. Make them sound like old, beloved vinyl.

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