Turntable Revolution – why listening to vinyl is good for you

Just as a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day, maintaining a consistent look means you will find yourself the height of fashion at some point in every twenty year cycle. Unfortunately no one, including yourself, will believe this in the intervening years because people have short memories and most are awfully judgmental. One of the current hot-new-things that is actually a taken-for-granted-old-thing is ownership of the little acts of creative magic that make our lives easier and more pleasurable. As the virus of the “subscription model” continues to spread out through all aspects of our personal and professional lives, contemplation of all the things that we don’t really realise that we don’t really own can induce a form of capitalist vertigo. If one of the defining characteristics of ownership is the ability to transfer the deed at will, most people don’t own a lot of the things that they read, listen to, even look at but rather merely rent temporary and surprisingly limited access to them. My parents owned all of their cars outright and made sure that they lasted as long as was feasible, using rubber bands and denier tights if necessary.

I will be lucky to lease a four wheeled supercomputer using a complex financial instrument that I don’t fully understand. This means that rather than learning what a carburetor is as a matter of urgency in a layby, I will inadvertently breach the terms of my contract and be ejected onto the road with a print out of the T&Cs as the only thing to hide my modesty as I watch the device drive itself back to the dealership for immediate resale. While the subscription model now covers things as mundane as toilet paper or as ubiquitous as dirt (guess which business is called Soil of the Month), the area that would have Euterpe weeping into her flute is music, for both the originator and the listener. (See also, books, film and increasingly art).

The key benefit to streaming music is that modern watch word convenience. The idea of having access to a sizeable percentage of the entirety of modern music on a device in your pocket and for a modest fee is in many ways magical and also, importantly, democratises enjoyment. The vast majority of people wouldn’t have the money, space or time to build a collection of physical music that covered a fraction of the material they listen to across the space of a year. And for an increasing number of people, digital music is the form that they grow up with, the very idea of physicality with music being a strange mix of old and new. But a lot is lost, not just for the musicians who used to be able to make a decent living, and much more in many cases, by making and performing work that they loved and who now have to be multi-platform influencers as well doing their day job. The end user has also paid a heavy price, in a number of different currencies, for the Pyrrhic victory of convenience. In order to keep the running time reasonable, I will limit myself to three.

Not long ago I was at a conference on corporate team building at a glamorous hotel in London. The guest speaker was a retired Rear Admiral in the British Navy who had retrained as a behavourial psychologist and now advised senior leadership teams on quick and effective decision making. Apart from allowing me to complete that month’s corporate jargon bingo card in the space of a morning, he imparted a piece of knowledge that changed the way I engaged with information. He was talking about the difference between ereaders and paper books. I’m paraphrasing but apparently the brain considers information delivered via ereader to be of a lower value than that delivered via a physical page and so assigns it to different forms of memory, with the majority of ereader info being sent to short-term memory and then dumped. I had clasped my treasured electronic book tightly in my hands, not wanting to believe and so I challenged him. He asked me to tell him about a specific chapter in the last electronic book I had read versus a physical book. I couldn’t and I have never picked up an ereader since. I am conscious of a similar process happening with streamed music versus the needle on the groove of a record.

Streamed music is a premade meal, snatched from the endless shelves of a superstore and consumed quickly, on the move. At best convenient and filling, at worst, empty calories for the ear. A record is a home cooked feast, prepared with love for one or many from carefully selected ingredients, and savoured. They’re both food, and there is a time and place for each way of eating, but I know which I find more rewarding.

My second point in my case for vinyl is personal and takes the form of a confession. At a certain point in the evening, when drink has been taken and the blood is up, I become a streaming bore. I become convinced that I, and I alone, hold the key to the room’s auditory pleasure and if they don’t enjoy it, then that’s their fault. The problem is that, among my many talents, the ability to pick the right song for the right crowd at the right moment is almost totally absent. And even worse my conviction that I know the perfect next track often precedes any idea of what that track might be, so an awkward silence can descend on the room as I stare at the phone screen clutched defensively in both hands while I try to summon the knowledge to back my conviction. Ahhh. It feels good to share. Unfortunately my affliction is also shared by an alarming amount of people. Luckily the vast majority of them have a better knowledge of both music and mood but the point remains that a gathering that is soundtracked by a streaming service which is open to all can become as fractious, unsatisfying and incoherent for the general populace as a political debate. But one person can be in charge of the phone, I hear you cry. You haven’t been at a Greek dinner party when the sugar from the Despina mille-feuille combines with the sugar from the Montofoli Vin Santo and causes social combustion, I scream back at you.  Due to the physical, and often beautiful, nature of record players, people are much less likely to manhandle the host’s machine.

Mobile phones are fairly homogeneous, even different devices look alike, and people feel a certain degree of shared ownership but it is a brave guest who wrestles an LP out of the hands of the owner after producing a flat 31.43 cm sq box that they happened to have on their person. An LP, once on, generally gets the chance to finish what it started and peace, or at least musical detente, reigns until it has.

The last point in my brief argument in favour of vinyl is the beauty of the object itself. I realised at some point on my tour of record shops this week that I was feeling the same creative satiety as I feel after a visit to a good museum, gallery or art show. A selection of sleeves are proudly displayed on shelves in each shop so as to better appreciate their beauty, their rarity or their value as an historical document.

At their best, album art transcends its basic function as product packaging to become high art which in turn amplifies the purchasing, listening and even owning, experience. Covers like Peter Blake’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Andy Warhol’s covers for The Rolling Stones and The Velvet Underground and covers for Joy Division, Nirvana and The Sex Pistols have burst the banks of the already broad river of music to become instantly recognised and endlessly referenced cultural artifacts.

To push my argument to breaking point again, if cover art and and the artists that make it are essential partner to the LP, then cast iron T&Cs and the lawyers who write them are the modern equivalent for the streaming platform. Now, I have no problem with lawyers but has anyone poured themselves a whiskey and sat down to listen to Bitch’s Brew on a bluetooth speaker while reading the Mandatory Arbitration and Waiver of Class Action Rights clause? I don’t know about you but I’d much rather glaze in admiration at Mati Klarwein’s surrealist masterpiece.

I could muster many more arguments in defence of vinyl. The quality of the sound for one. The difference between an album and algorithmically generated sequence of singles is another. Maybe one of the most important, and one that I have been keenly reminded of this week, is the pleasure of interacting with passionate and knowledgeable individuals who run these shops and who remind you why buying something from an expert can be a pleasure in itself.

An introduction to some of Athens’ best vinyl shops and a pick from the owner

Zacharias

The largest of the Athenian record shops, which fills most of a stoa in the Monistiraki backstreets, this place is a paradise for lovers of second records with most genres represented in some form. In fact, browsing the genre tabs is a pleasure in itself as you move from German progressive rock to Turkish pysch to Medieval and Troubadours and beyond. Greek music is well represented as it should be. Zaharias, or Zac as he’s known, founded the shop in the early 90s having previously sold records from a box on the street. A committed and passionate discophile, Zaharias makes several pilgrimages a year to dig through obscure grates and dusty backrooms so we don’t have to. He’s on hand in the store with an encylopedic knowledge of the multitudes of wax in his collection. 

Zac’s pick. Love, Forever Changes. 1967. 

While it didn’t make much of an impression when it was first released in 1967, Forever Changes by Love is now considered one of the classics of psychedelia and frequently blesses “best ever album” lists. The name comes from an argument one of the band members had with a girlfriend. When she complained that “you said you’d love me forever” he replied “forever changes”. 

Ifaistou 20, Monastiraki.

Mint by Modernistas

A relatively recent addition to the Athens vinyl scene this lovely little shop in Exarchia manages to feel like it’s been there forever. This might be due to the timeless classics on display or the warmth and charm of the shop owner, Thanassis, who spent a career in Athenian hospitality slowly acquiring a truly wonderful collection of original and reissued 60s vinyl. The collection includes Japanese jazz fusion, Italian soundtracks, Brazilian funk and all manner of wonderful treats for the eyes and ears, with the sleeves on display reinforcing the feeling of great record shops being galleries in all but name. Thanassis DJs under the name Modernistas and the mint condition of the records give the shop its name. Thanassis is a natural host and can regale you with a depth of knowledge about his collection over a glass of tsipouro.

Thanassis’ pick. Nora Orlandi, Sfere Luminose. 1970

Thanassis understandably resisted the idea of recommending just one record in his shop but when pressed he was too polite to refuse and selected Sfere Luminose by Nora Orlandi and Franco Tonani. Nora Orlandi, who died on Jan 1st in Rome, was the first woman of Italian composition in the 60s and 70s with one of her tracks being given the modern nod of coolness by featuring on a Quentin Tarantino soundtrack. On this classic album she is accompanied by jazz drummer Franco Tonani and their collaboration leads to a beautifully cinematic, lush and, at times surreal, musical record.  Asklipiou 79, Athens

Rock ‘n’ Roll Circus

Opened in 2000 by Dimos Passas, this record shop in Kolonaki celebrates its 25th birthday this year, a relative rarity for the area and a testament to the quality of the records on offer and Dimos’ passion for music and vinyl. The shop mainly focuses on Black American music with jazz, soul and funk being particularly well represented. For someone raised on the music by a jazz nut, strolling around the small shop was a Proustian journey down memory lane and I could have spent all afternoon, and rather a lot of money, in there. Rock and Roll Circus also hosts a biannual record fair, one in March on the shop’s birthday and one in the Autumn. These are a great opportunity to pick up rare records and meet like-minded aficionados of the good stuff.

Dimos’ pick. Sonny Rollins, Plus 4. 1956

In keeping with the other shop owners I talked to, Dimos was reluctant to single out one record but eventually pointed at Plus 4 by Sonny Rollins. One of the greatest tenor saxophonists, and in fact one of the most important jazz musicians of all time, Rollins’ place in the pantheon of jazz gods is secure. Having collaborated with other legendary jazz greats including Miles Davis, Max Roach and Theolonius Monk, Rollins’ famously took a 3 years hiatus at the height of his fame to perfect his craft, practising on Williamsburg Bridge. Featuring Rollin’s at a pivotal point in his career, Plus 4, considered a jazz classic and defining album of the hard bop movement and features a stellar line up.  Sina 21, Athens

 

Stellage

Located in Kypseli, with its artists fairs and architectural gems, this is a record shop and performance space and much more that defies easy categorisation and is all the better for it. There is a carefully curated selection of vinyl from small and hard to access artists and labels in Greece, Europe and beyond that broadly comes under the aegis of the avante garde. In fact the shops resists the traditional categorisation by genre to avoid putting labels on the music they curate, support and sell. While some of Athens’ vinyl shops can be a hunt for much loved and well known gems, Stellage is, for me at least, much more about the pleasure in discovering new artist, albums, and even genres. Run by music artist Dimitris Papadatos who performs under the name Jay Glass Dubs and a group of friends and collaborators from the community, the place is run very much by artists, for artists, even featuring a space in the basement in which they host gatherings and shows. Unsurprisingly, given the ambiance of the shop, Dimitri is a thoughtful and articulate about the increasingly complex world of music creation and consumption. Rather than being a vinyl purist, as some shop owners seem to be, he sees a place for all forms of musical output in this modern age, from the frictionless but theoretically unlimited reach of the digital platforms that may not pay the bills but do give the artist the chance to build an audience, to the tactile reality of a vinyl record or even tape cassette. As he says, for most young consumers and lovers of music, digital was the first thing they knew and they are discovering the pleasures and pains of the physical forms now, rather than the other way round.

Dimitri’s pick. Demeter in Aexone by Sissi Rada

“Demeter in Aexone” is a 45’ pure solo improvisation by Greek harpist, Sissi Rada. Using no post production techniques and no overdubs, the album was recorded one afternoon in her studio in Voula, Athens, overlooking the ancient demos of “Aexone”. It is a tribute to the ancient myth of Persephone, the daughter of the goddess Demeter, to whom the Eleusinian Mysteries were dedicated. The music evokes archaic atmospheres, as raw wooden sounds intertwine with modal harmonies and extended techniques, by this ancient instrument, hailing from 3.000 BC that is suddenly transformed into a current medium. The harp that Sissi Rada plays is a rare 100 years old Lyon and Healy Style 3 harp. Kipselis 49, Athens

Okupa

For George and Hrag, the charming individuals that lead the teams at the hotel, bar, restaurant and more, Okupa, music was always going to be important, and music played on vinyl, all the more so. The listening station of the main bar is a temple to all the good stuff with a focus on world grooves, reissues of cult classics, as well as disco, funk, soul and jazz. As Hrag says when asked “why vinyl?” “Since vinyl has been the only analog format that made a comeback in recent years, it’s a format where the artwork is elaborated, the sound is unmatched, and the the whole ritual of playing a vinyl adds to the experience making it sound better.” And what better place to participate in that ritual then at the glorious bar at Okupa on a Friday evening with musical selectors dropping a sequence of timeless bangers. 

Hrag’s pick. Ayo Ke Disco by Various Artists.

A firm favourite of Gilles Peterson, Ayo Ke Disco (“Let’s go to the disco” in Indonesian) celebrates the musical identities emerging from South-East Asia during the 1970s and 80s. Soundway general manager Alice Whittington, aka Norsicaa (DJ), selects 10 rare tracks from local labels, officially reissued on vinyl for the first time – forming a snapshot of the vibrant discotheques and live scenes across Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong and the Philippines. The artists featured here were known for exploring traditional sounds alongside funk, disco, synth-pop and even political psych-rock, genres that were indicative of the exciting but often turbulent period. But despite the post-war backdrop of instability there came unprecedented levels of economic prosperity. With a hopeful buzz filling the air, the music scene was helping lead the way in reshaping the new identities of the region. Psaromiligkou 9,  Athens

For more info on the Athens Vinyl Market 2025, click here.

 

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