In the beginning we had planned for a large article on vinyl vs mp3 and beards in pop culture. Then Kevin Kane got hold of these questions and there was no looking back. The Sunset Strips are proud to present the first, and hopefully not the last, edition of Kevin Kane on...
vinyl vs mp3
hmmm. instead of restating everything that everyone already knows about both formats, lemme just pick this bone for a sec.
listen, i think i have a pretty fuckin' good set of ears. i still have all my high frequencies, i can hear a TV set being turned on three rooms away, and i carry a pair of earplugs with me everywhere (they're just as essential as my wallet, my cell phone, and my keys). but i can't really tell too much of a difference between the sound of vinyl and CD. vinyl and shitty mp3's, sure, but i don't fuck around with shitty mp3's (my bare minimum is 192), and if you do, then you should be ashamed of yourself.
but anyway. i just wish people would be honest (especially with THEMSELVES) about why they listen to vinyl. not many things make my blood boil more than some goofball with black-framed glasses and ironic facial hair telling me, fucking soapboxing at me, that vinyl sounds "so much better" than CD. dude couldn't hear his way out of a paper bag. go back to the Pitchfork Music Festival, ya goofball.
what i'm saying is that the difference is NEGLIGIBLE and my asshole peers overstate the warmth of analogue instead of just admitting that collecting vinyl makes 'em feel cool. hey, it makes me feel cool too, and when i have my druthers (at home, where my modest collection sits), i opt for vinyl 10 times out of 10. but c'mon, dude. just admit it.
also, mp3's are cheaper. by my latest estimate (i.e. considering the dozens of albums i stole from the internet in the past few days, sitting there on my desktop just to the right of that sexy picture of Naomi Watts), mp3's are free as fuck. thirty bucks will get me an original pressing of The White Album in shitty condition, or a month's worth of spaghetti.
my favorite vinyl release is, i guess, no different from my favorite album in general. i don't really see why I'd differentiate between the two, unless i owned a Godspeed record (i hear they really go nuts with their packaging). actually, scratch that (hah! scratch, get it?): my favorite record is my copy of Peter Gabriel's So. just 'cause he looks so damn sexy on it. why don't more girls have a crush on 1990's Peter Gabriel? seriously, Google Image Search that shit.
my favorite album in general, though, is The Dark Side of the Moon. and it should be yours, too. and if it isn't, then I'll be patient with you until you come to your senses.
obsolete? nah, it'll live on, barring global thermonuclear war. everyone wants something to hold. you can't really caress an mp3. you could caress a cassette, but that'd just be silly.
beards
beards. christ. remember up there when i started that sentence with "not many things make my blood boil more than..."? well, this makes my blood boil more. ironic facial hair, i mean. to my mind, one should only grow facial hair because 1). you think it makes you look better, and/or 2). you're lazy. both of which apply to me, and that's why i have a (very short) beard. i've wet shaved all of 15 times in my life. all i gotta do is shave the neckbeard and trim the actual beard like once every three or four days. it's great.
but these fuckin' guys. these fuckin' guys! y'know, a lot of our parents grew up in the 60's and 70's. lived through the Summer of Love. shit like that. i can't believe I'm going to have to reflect, many years from now, that my peers were these vapid hipsters with plaid button-downs and lensless glasses and tiny, tiny, tiny fucking jeans. it's unfair. i dunno when upper middle class twentysomething males got the memo that beards were in season. from whence do these memos originate? who the fuck exhumed the toy xylophone from its grave and commanded indie bands to employ it? or the singing saw, for that matter? seriously, whose fucking idea was the singing saw?
and so, as with most other things, i can only really jive with what's considered "classic." what's well-established, what's always looked good. to wit, a short, nicely-trimmed (but not TOO nicely-trimmed) beard, and no fucking neck hair. anything else seems (and almost certainly is) contrived.
i make an exception, of course, for older men--i.e., those who deserve it. those who've earned their beard. old dudes are totally allowed to have big disgusting beards. bonus points if they're white, Santa-style. old dudes make beards look truly cool. my asshole peers make beards look like fucking accessories, no more a part of their mega-ironic ensemble than their ugly knit beanies and their cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon. or their extremely expensive sixers. there's no in-between. my favorite bearded man is Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski.
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