If there is one thing that separates the chicks from the dudes, it’s stereos. I remember when I was young, dudes often had more money in their stereo thingies than they had in their cars. As far as stereos are concerned, one thing stands out, at least for me: the advent of the cd player. When cd players came out, people marveled at the clear, crisp sound. In that year, 1985 for me but I’m sure it was earlier for stereo-philes, I had just gotten around to actually getting a real turntable, you know one that wasn’t part of an all-in-one box, given to me by my parents for some Christmas present. I was proud of my turntable, and I wasn’t about to scrap my records for that little tiny thing with no room for the pretty pictures and notes with hidden meanings from the artists I adored. You cannot sit with a cd like you can an album, so automatically I didn’t care that the cd didn’t have that annoying scratchy sound everyone said was gone from the cd. But then there was this…. I sat in front of the stereos of my dude friends while they played their new-fangled cds in their new-fangled cd-player and for the life of me I couldn’t hear this greatness of which they spoke. I thought the records sounded more … alive, warmer. I remember saying that, that the records sounded warmer, but everyone challenged the quality of my ears.

Fast forward … as many years as qualifies for that phrase “a lady never tells her age.” Now we have records, with their new hip name “vinyl” popping up everywhere. Urban Outfitters sells record players, records too. Whole Foods has a listening station. A few months ago, I took a seat in that Whole Foods listening area, put Some Girls on the record player and listened in headphones, not realizing I didn’t have the headphones plugged in properly such that the store patrons and employees could hear. People came up to me thanking me for playing this cool record. At least two people wanted to know what it was. “Rock,” I said, “The Rolling Stones.” People said “that’s good,” with an especially strong emphasis on “good.” I just nodded. And I was reminded of that thought I had in front of the dude-stereos in 1985.

Records, excuse me vinyl, is now cool. And get this…. Remember those mail-order records where you sent some nominal amount to get a dozen records, but then were stuck paying for them somehow later? Mind you I don’t actually know how or when because I don’t trust such things as mail-order anything and so never actually ordered them. Well, now a wanna-be upstart with a business model akin to a “vinyl-Netflix” wants to send records, excuse me vinyl, to your house for a monthly membership fee of $15. Records you chose to keep will be billed at $12-$15 each. I don’t think it exists yet as I saw this as a feature on the pop radio channel I listen to the countdown on, but they reached their beg-for-money-on-line “kickstart” goal a few days ago.

What is old is new again, and turns out, records really were better all along. Hey dudes from 1985; did you hear me? But seriously, what would it be like to get a record in the mail? Could this work?