Old Records Never Die
One Man's Quest for His Vinyl and His Past
Published on 12. April 2016
Book
Paperback/Softback
288 pages
978-0-14-218161-4 (ISBN)
Description
A Hudson Booksellers Best Non-Fiction Book of the Year, with foreword by Wilco's Jeff Tweedy
High Fidelity meets Killing Yourself to Live when one man searches for his lost record collection.
As he finds himself within spitting distance of middle-age, journalist Eric Spitznagel feels acutely the loss of… something. Freedom? Maybe. Coolness? Could be. The records he sold in a financial pinch? Definitely. To find out for sure, he sets out on a quest to find the original vinyl artifacts from his past. Not just copies. The exact same records: The Bon Jovi record with his first girlfriend's phone number scrawled on the front sleeve. The KISS Alive II he once shared with his little brother. The Replacements Let It Be he's pretty sure, 20 years later, would still smell like weed.
As he embarks on his hero's journey, he reminisces about the actual records, the music, and the people he listened to it with-old girlfriends, his high school pals, and, most poignantly, his father and his young son. He explores the magic of music and memory as he interweaves his adventures in record-culture with questions about our connection to our past, the possibility of ever recapturing it, and whether we would want to if we could.
"Memories are far more indelible when married to the physical world, and Spitznagel proves the point in this vivid book. We love vinyl records because they combine the tactile, the visual, the seeable effects of age and care and carelessness. When he searches for the records he lost and sold, Spitznagel is trying to return to a tangible past, and he details that process with great sensitivity and impact."-Dave Eggers, New York Times bestselling author of The Circle
High Fidelity meets Killing Yourself to Live when one man searches for his lost record collection.
As he finds himself within spitting distance of middle-age, journalist Eric Spitznagel feels acutely the loss of… something. Freedom? Maybe. Coolness? Could be. The records he sold in a financial pinch? Definitely. To find out for sure, he sets out on a quest to find the original vinyl artifacts from his past. Not just copies. The exact same records: The Bon Jovi record with his first girlfriend's phone number scrawled on the front sleeve. The KISS Alive II he once shared with his little brother. The Replacements Let It Be he's pretty sure, 20 years later, would still smell like weed.
As he embarks on his hero's journey, he reminisces about the actual records, the music, and the people he listened to it with-old girlfriends, his high school pals, and, most poignantly, his father and his young son. He explores the magic of music and memory as he interweaves his adventures in record-culture with questions about our connection to our past, the possibility of ever recapturing it, and whether we would want to if we could.
"Memories are far more indelible when married to the physical world, and Spitznagel proves the point in this vivid book. We love vinyl records because they combine the tactile, the visual, the seeable effects of age and care and carelessness. When he searches for the records he lost and sold, Spitznagel is trying to return to a tangible past, and he details that process with great sensitivity and impact."-Dave Eggers, New York Times bestselling author of The Circle
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Publishing group
Penguin Putnam Inc
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 203 mm
Width: 134 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
217 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-14-218161-4 (9780142181614)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
04/2016
Plume
€5.49
Available for download
Persons
Eric Spitznagel writes for magazines like Playboy, Esquire, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Men’s Health, Billboard, The Believer, and the New York Times Magazine, among many others. He’s the author of six books, one of which was translated into German and features a cat on the cover for no apparent reason. He lives in Chicago with his wife and son, the latter of whom wants to be a “mad scientist” when he grows up. (That’s now in print, so the author intends to hold him to it.)