If the 50’s and ’60’s is exemplified by the 45RPM record then the ’60’s and ’70’s was the 12″ long play gramophone record or LP. In technical terms it is a analogue storage medium utilizing a spiral groove which ran from the outer edge to the center of the disk but we just called them “albums.” The disk itself was made from vinyl and replaced the 78 RPM disk which had, in turn, replaced the cylinder.
LP’s enabled stereophonic reproduction before the 45’s had them but it wasn’t popular. My first LP, Got Live If You Want It by the Rolling Stones, was monophonic because it was $1 cheaper at $4.29. But then I got a stereo record player for Christmas and I started buying stereo LP’s. (That was Come Home by The Dave Clark Five)
Without getting into too much technical detail (you can go to Wikipedia for that stuff) let’s just say that the LP went commercially into the ’90’s and now is still has a cult following. The purists claim that the analogue sound of the vinyl is “fatter” and warmer.
I wanted to expound on the social aspects of the LP record, or album:
- When you got a new album it was cause enough for a party (The Cheech and Chong party was the one I remember best.)
- The LP led to mass, socially-acceptable theft of plastic milk crates because your albums fit exactly into them (Then metric came along and the milk companies never had to worry again).
- When you and your girl friend broke up it was called “splitting the record collection.” (This never happened to us. We never lent our records to anyone let alone women and never would have joined them with a woman’s collection. However, as the boys got married - and divorced - this may have happened. Mine are now mixed in with my wife’s. Hey, what’re you gonna do?).
- You were judged by the quantity of records you had.
- You were judged by the number of great titles and bands you had (Wishbone Ash, Fleetwood Mac - **way before the girls messed them up** - and early Pink Floyd Umma Gumma.).
- You were an immediate outcast if your girlfriend’s David Cassidy record ever touched your turntable.
- Your were judged by the brand of turntable. (Dual was good, Thorens was better and BSR was crap. I had a Kenwood “Rock” and still wish I had it. The marble base was not conducive wow-and-flutter)
- Your were also judged by your stereo: Sansui, Harman Kardon, Technics, Kenwood)
- And last: Your LP’s were a soundtrack of your life for the period of time that you collected them.
I still have my LP’s and I won’t sell them although I never get a chance to play them anymore. They are a soundtrack of my life from 1966 to 1981. That’s when I stopped buying them (I was more mobile and had tapes - waste! Then I got CD’s)