As consumers’ audiovisual habits change and people enjoy the convenience of playing music from streaming platforms or audiovisual websites, people are sometimes reminiscent about the era when they had to save up and tighten their belts to buy a favorite record.
Have you ever skipped meals and saved up your allowance to go to the record store to buy a new CD, cassette, or even vinyl record released by your favorite singer? No matter the medium, the excitement of carrying a bag from a record store and wanting to dash home immediately to listen to the songs was the same.
Once upon a time, after class, you went into a record store with posters of idols, stars, and beautiful women plastering the walls. The cathode ray tube TV set hung high up in the shop played music videos of popular music. Standing in front of the shelves of the record store, you flipped through record after record, looking for familiar names: Tsai Chin, Su Rui, Chiang Yu-Heng, Dave Wong, Chang Yu-Sheng, the Little Tigers, Sandy Lam, Orient Express, Ouyang Fei Fei, and A-Mei. The music that once greatly touched you is now percolating in your heart again.
Over time, music no longer required a tangible medium, and today, we almost never need to pay for record albums. Naturally, we lack the anticipation and excitement of new albums. Walk into the reminiscent record store, and we will take you back in time to the 1980s, a decade that was lively, noisy, and filled with an air of restlessness.
