171 Listening Room

The Death Of The Album Has Serious Consequences For Music Lovers.

- Uday Benegal

Growing up in the Seventies in Bombay, few experiences could match the excitement I felt on acquiring a brand new album. In those days, that meant an LP, whose cover measured one square foot, a respectable canvas for an image of artistry and innovation. Back then, the album cover was nearly as important as the music burned into the vinyl disc itself.

As a kid, I would hop down to Kemp’s Corner, to the building that once housed the famous India Cane House, to a little record shop called Music Centre to get my fix. Those were days of musical paucity in India – the latest release would usually arrive months, if not years, after it had been on shelves in the West. Beggars, choosers, you know the deal. We took what we got. Melody Salon, near Metro cinema, and Hiro Music House in Bandra suffered the same inventorial woes. Rhythm House, which shuttered last year, was the only one with any staying power, thanks to the owners’ acumen for flowing with the tide. Nothing was infra dig if it kept the cash register dinging, so you’d find Anuradha Paudwal bhajans sharing shelf real estate with the new Def Leppard album.

The tide in the Eighties determined that after the cassette boom (of mostly shitty-quality audiotape), LPs were officially obsolete thanks to the invention of the CD, and Sony’s adaptation of its brilliant invention, the Walkman, to the Discman.