Your Vinyl Collections

by Robin Hilton

Yesterday, Bob Boilen and I, along with Song of the Day editor Stephen Thompson and Monitor Mix blogger Carrie Brownstein, got together to talk about the year in music. We shared our picks for the best new artists of 2008, the best songs, the biggest surprises and much more. We recorded that discussion, and will post it on All Songs Considered for you to hear on Monday, Dec. 8.

Though we talked for more than two hours -- I know, we're dorks -- we didn't have enough time to cover everything. We had planned to talk about the trends we saw emerging this year, but never got to it. I know that Stephen saw 2008 as a year of getting back to basics. He saw less innovation and more tradition: music crafted with classic building blocks, like solid harmonies, simple guitar and drum lines, and so on. Bob saw it as a year in which the lines between artist and audience became more blurred than ever. He points to Brian Eno's "Bloom" application for the iPhone and iPod that allows you to collaborate virtually with Eno to create dreamy ambient music.

For me, 2008 was the year of vinyl. I recently asked you to send in photos of your own vinyl collections, and we got some great pics. We've created a group on Flickr where you can view those photos and add your own.

All Songs Considered listener Robert Clark poses with part of his impressive vinyl collection.

I've mentioned before that reports show sales of vinyl rising dramatically, but anecdotally I can say that record labels sent us more promo copies of new albums on vinyl this year than any year before (in recent history). I'm certain that we're bound to see more and more vinyl arriving in the mail.

Feel free to post your own photos to the All Songs Flickr page (you can also email them to us if you prefer), and check back on Monday the 8th to hear our (highly pared down) discussion of the year in music. Also, don't forget to vote for your Top 10 albums in our annual listener poll. Results of that poll will go up Dec. 15.

2:20 PM ET | 12- 5-2008 | permalink

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