Vinyl is back? It never left
Vinyl sales grow rapidly. Nostalgia? No way. I kept playing records, since I started buying them. Bob’s latest Beyond the horizon I bought on vinyl (the heavy 180 grams version, a CD was included). Ah, that lovely smell when you open the package (you only smell it if the LP is still sealed). Top selling artists? Among others Bob Dylan. Sometimes weeks go by and I only listen to CD’s. This week two LP’s competed with Arcade Fire and Vampire Weekend on CD: Hanging in the Balance (a collector’s item) and Desire (a collector’s item). To start with the last: huh, a collector’s item? Yes it is. Because (look closely at the picture, top left) it is the quadrophonic version of Desire. Hanging in the Balance (it was my 30th bootleg of Dylan and I paid 65 guilders for the double LP. In those days that was two to three times the price for a ‘normal’ LP, if my memory serves me well). Hanging in the Balance is a great album. Funny thing: on the album is no information whatsoever except for the songs. Twenty years later I found out: it is a release of the concert on July 14 (1981) in Bad Segeberg, Germany. The picture on the front is (unless I’m wrong) from the same concert. Look at Dylan’s expression: he’s into the music. Shot of love was not yet released, but Dylan plays four songs of this CD (Lenny Bruce, in the summertime, watered-down love, dead man dead man). It’s a turning point. In 1981 Dylan started singing his ‘old’ songs again, which he refused for a long time.  Considering the forthcoming release of The Bootleg Series volume 9, I really regret that this very creative period has been and will be overlooked.