The Adventure of Buying After Listening: The Excitement at the Store and the Gap After Getting Home

Last time, I wrote about "buying by the cover."
This time, it's about "buying after listening," where you actually listen to the record before purchasing it.

"Buying after listening" is literally the pattern of listening to a record at a store or similar place before buying it.

Nowadays, many people probably search on their smartphones at the store to check the content before buying, but back then, we had no choice but to ask at the counter to let us listen.

However, you could say this was a trap.

Later on, more stores started offering headphone listening, but in my experience, I often remember being able to listen to them loudly on the store's speakers.
I think listening at a relatively high volume on the store's speakers increased my desire to buy.

I would ask the store clerk, "Excuse me, could you let me listen to this?" for a record I was curious about, and after hearing it, I would excitedly say, "Oh! I'll take this!" and buy it.

But this is where my common pattern began.

When I got home and excitedly put it on the turntable...

"Huh? Was it like this?"

There were many times when it was the same song I had heard at the store, but it didn't sound like a good song at all.
And this was even after I had gone out of my way to ask them to let me listen to it.

I don't have those records anymore, but the ones I remember by title are:

• Lonnie Smith – Afro-Desia

• Jack McDuff – Magnetic Feel

Back when I first started buying old records, I remember listening to that one at a used record store in Osaka and immediately deciding, "Wow! This is cool," but then being disappointed when I dropped the needle at home and thought, "Something is different."

I got rid of it immediately, and although I've had many opportunities to get that record again since then, I've come to look away from it.

Now, as I write this and listen to it again, it's not that bad, but even now, when I hear the bassline of Magnetic Feel, I still feel a sharp, painful sense of discomfort deep in my chest.

And speaking of listening magic, there's online listening.
Nowadays, you can often listen to the whole thing, but back then, only clips of parts of the songs were introduced, and I was fooled by this many times.

In particular, buying online late at night or while drunk is strictly forbidden.

It's not just old jazz or Latin records; I've had countless failures with listening to 12-inch records like techno as well.
In this case, I end up listening with headphones at home, but I feel like there are more failures that way.

Whether at a physical store or an online shop, my mental state when buying records is a bit elevated, and perhaps I lack calm judgment.

Looking back, I even feel like buying based on the cover art had a higher success rate.

The excitement of picking it up at the store can change depending on how you drop the needle at home.
It is a small story from the era when we carefully selected and bought music.

Back then at the store, I was led astray by this bassline.