For musicphiles coming of age in in the 70s and 80s, vinyl records were essential. Journalist Eric Spitznagel recalls fighting with his brother over a shared copy of the KISS Alive II album. How his first girlfriend Heather G. scrawled her phone number across the jacket of Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet. And, he was certain that even twenty years later, his copy of The Replacements’ Let It Be would still smell like weed.

Now approaching middle age, Spitznagel, a husband and recent father, found himself seeking a reconnection with his youth. After an embarrassing admission to musician Questlove that he no longer owned his record collection, he experienced major seller’s regret and set out to find the original vinyl artifacts from his past. Not just copies. The exact same records.

Spitznagel’s hero’s journey takes him to record fairs across the Midwest, rain soaked music festivals, and into the basements of curmudgeonly record store proprietors, as he reminisces about the actual records, the music, and the people he listened to them with—old girlfriends, high school pals, and, most poignantly, his father and young son. He explores the magic of music and memory as he interweaves his adventures in record culture with questions about our connection to our past: Can we ever recapture it? And, would we even want to?

The current vinyl renaissance has album sales resurging into the millions and climbing each year—and OLD RECORDS NEVER DIE: One Man’s Quest for his Vinyl and His Past is a love letter to the medium that both millennial analog hipsters and Gen X fans can appreciate.

About the Author
Eric Spitznagel writes for magazines like Playboy, Esquire, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Men’s Health, Maxim, Billboard, Details, The Believer, and the New York Times Magazine, among many others. He’s the author of six books, including Ron Jeremy’s bestselling autobiography The Hardest (Working) Man in Showbiz. He’s also edited several humor anthologies, most recently, Care to Make Love in That Gross Little Space Between Cars?