Kiddo has been collecting vinyl records for a couple of years now. When we realized it wasn't going to be a quick fad we helped them lean into the hobby, upgrading the turntable, making space in their room, encouraging their purchases, etc. For Xmas this year we got them, among other things, a bunch of new records. We also made them this book. The intro page I wrote explains it best. The text is pasted below and the images that follow are its contents.
“Well, when you like something, it's an opinion. But when I like something, it's a manifesto.” - “Pike St. / Park Slope” by Harvey Danger
It’s never been enough for me to like music. I need to LOVE it. I need to FEEL it. I need to internalize the experience of listening to a song or an album in such a way that it rewires my neurons and rewrites my DNA. I need it to be good enough to change me on a fundamental level. I suppose that’s why I don’t hold too many casual opinions about music. If it’s worth my time, then it’s worth a leather-bound dissertation on what it means to me and why it matters.
One of the things that excited me most about being a parent was getting the opportunity to share music with my child. Not just to teach them about what music I loved, but how and why I loved it. I wanted that child to see the connections I made between experience and lyrics; between emotion and melody and learn how to make those same kinds of connections themself. Seeing the way YOU feel and experience and love music at a cellular level has been, for me, one of the great rewards of parenting. Even if I fail at everything else, I take comfort and pride knowing that I’ve helped teach you to appreciate the profound effect music can have to entertain, to soothe, to comfort, to hurt, to remind, and to transport us through space and time.
"Art is how we decorate space, music is how we decorate time." - Jean-Michel Basquiat
In this book you’ll find your mother’s and my thoughts on our favorite albums. Not just OUR all-time favorites, but specifically our favorites that are also YOUR favorites. As you add to your collection, we will add to this book. Feel free to add your own, and to write anything you like about the music that you love in the pages in the back. If my voice is the melody that drives us forward, and your mother’s heart is the rhythm that holds us together, then you are the harmony that completes and elevates our song.
I love you, we love you. - Dad
