Erin got a record player for Christmas, so I also have access to one. We each picked out albums from our parents to bring back to Connecticut and stopped into a local record shop last month. Her dad’s copy of Elton John’s Honky Cat was hilariously warped—it sounded like the left and right speakers were playing a quarter-beat different from each other. At the shop, she found a copy of an original press of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours that the shop proprietor had forgotten about. It had a slight scratch, so he priced it at five dollars.
Vinyl is terrible, except for all the ways that it’s great. Most of those ways amount to coming full circle in an attention-starved economy where billionaires who thought Snow Crash had some pretty good ideas for the future are fighting for each second of our lives, fully aware that we’re near to bursting yet desperate for the next second to be the best second we’ve experienced that day. Beyond that, it’s about the vibe and process.
All this to say, putting a vinyl record on a turntable is an intentional act. Those records contain albums that are entire pieces of art, comprising individual songs that are each a bit of art but none of which capture the complete work. Experiencing art as a whole, accepting it as it’s provided, is powerful and often requires patience and an open mind. That becomes more important as the temporality of the art increases.
As an analogy, consider arguing that you don’t have the space to look at all of the Mona Lisa. You’ll glance at the top-left corner for now and leave the rest for later. You are literally missing the bigger picture, the complete context of the artwork. Surely, Da Vinci paid significant attention to that corner—perhaps not quite as much as the entirety of the face, but each part of the painting still needed its touch—so we could consider that corner containing the background a piece of art in its own right, just like a song on an album can exist on its own. But it’s not the intent; the result is a failure to capture the whole meaning.
This becomes harder when art is in a time-based medium because our lives are more restricted by that dimension. Let’s be clear: the argument is not to only listen to music if you have enough time for the entire album; to only read short stories or watch movies if you can finish them in a single sitting; or to read the full text of every article whose headline you come across. You’re allowed to pick and choose, to bounce off a book or TV show that doesn’t grab your attention, to decide that a particular song is your favorite and not bother with the rest of the album, to listen to a playlist you enjoy for a particular activity. When art is put into the world, the artist cannot control how it is experienced. Yet, it still behooves us to consider the artist in our experience and, when possible, take their work as a whole piece in whatever way is intended.
The upside to this approach is immense. Regardless of the medium, it forcibly slows us down, replacing a short-term burst of relief from boredom with a more satisfying and fulfilling experience that trades effort for reward. It enhances our appreciation of subtlety and form by necessarily taking in more information to process, allowing more room for connections and space for the artist to share their message. One can gain patience and a sense of intentionality, breaking out of the pattern of passivity that’s part and parcel with scrolling, waiting for some organization’s algorithm to optimize the next second of your life further.
On that note, fully engaging with art helps the development of taste and opinions instead of that taste being dictated by others. Once we’re engaged with the art, there’s more to say about the works, more conversation to have, and more elements to explore and compare. All this further refines that taste and appreciation on one’s terms.
Take a break and listen to a full album, any album. Watch a movie or read a book outside of your comfort zone. Find art that’s a bit different and seriously consider why some people enjoy it, why some don’t, where you land on that spectrum, and why that is. We can only improve ourselves by putting in the effort, and art is such an intrinsically crucial human endeavor that taking it seriously is a sure way to grow.