As I travel through the world of records in 2026, I’ve said that I am interesting in acquiring new records.
Now, there are a lot of very hostile “audiophile” sites right here on WordPress. I’ve tried to chime in on discussions and gotten replies that have made me so angry that I simply can’t follow those sites, even if they do offer insightful information. I’m not naming anybody – but you pompous jackasses know who you are. #SorryNotSorry
There are many people that will immediately slam me for this – saying “new records aren’t analog” and so on. Here’s a shocker that nobody in the community wants to hear: records have been digitally sourced since 1985, and it’s fine. The “warmth” of the vinyl sound comes from the “hypersonic effect” in which the human brain reacts to frequencies above 22khz that aren’t technically audible by the human ear. It’s not $1000 cables, it’s not vacuum tubes, it’s not the specially made tonearm from Germany that costs another $1000. It’s science. It’s why vinyl sounds different (not necessarily better or worse) than CD. It’s also why CD can outperform spotify streaming any day of the week. Look it up, I’m not making these things up.
In any case – one day, I got a coupon code on Temu out of nowhere discounting this record, which was in my cart. Instead of paying $24.99 US, I paid about $10 with free shipping, seller being in the US, avoiding import fees.
This is a 2023 reissue, part of the celebration of the 75th anniversary of Atlantic Records, and it is none other than the most iconic record of the 1960’s – IN A GADDA DA VIDA.
What’s special about this edition, besides being mastered from original tapes in pristine digital form? It’s not just vinyl, it’s clear vinyl. Until now, I have never seen a clear record. But, they exist!
But the real question – what’s this record sound like? They actually did wonderful job. It sounds very bright and punchy, particularly in the shorter more up tempo songs such as the opener “Most Anything You Want.” The pervasive use of the transistor organs gives it away as a very 60’s record.
Absurdly, the title track, weighing in at just over 17 minutes long, occupied the entire second side of the record. As the story goes, the song is about the love story of Adam and Eve and was supposed to be called “in the garden of Eden.” When lead singer Doug Ingle, who was drunk out of his mind at the time, sang it for drummer Ron Bushy, who was writing it all down, he was slurring so bad that he wrote down what he could make out – “in a gadda da vida baby, don’t you know that I love you” and they got such a big laugh out of it that the title stuck.
In short, a great record, for which all the “warmth” remains intact when made digital due to that hypersonic effect. Yay, science!
As I say in other posts where I don’t drift off the beaten path into other things, like records… Shoot photos, not each other
Adventures of a Photo Nerd 