WAX TORONTO: ROTATE THIS MOVES INTO SONGBIRD

By Jen Houston 

Rotate This has just announced that it will be moving from 620 Queen W down the street to 801 Queen W. 801 used to be occupied by instrument retailer Songbird, and considering the size, should mean a lot more selection of awesome vinyls. A lot of the generation who happily shelved (or pawned) their vinyl by 1989 just can’t understand why us 20-somethings would actually prefer those oversized, warp-able, scratch-able records to the comparatively durable, small, and convenient CDs or the ‘ultimate in portability’ MP3 player. Don’t get us wrong, most of us own at least one MP3 player, and adore it for when we’re out. But when we’re home, the lush sound has us reverting to the old standard.  

“But I thought CDs were better quality,” is what I hear from a puzzled over-50 relative when I tell them about my love for vinyl. I sit and listen while my DJ cousin explains why wax technically sounds better: vinyl uses analog, which is an actual sound wave, while digital audio samples each wave at intervals, missing some frequencies. Listeners of analog can expect to hear more, but analog does have more surface noise, and loses quality as it’s reproduced. Digital can be copied and recopied without losing quality. But there is a certain authenticity to vinyl, the needle elegantly balanced, picking up every scratch and score. What you hear is not a recreation of sound… it’s an amplification of sound. While DJs kept turntables alive through the cassette and CD eras, there’s resurgence in mainstream popularity with a young culture that has embraced vinyl as cool. 

Vinyl stores can be found peppered between the trendy bars and clothing shops all along Queen W, attracting tourists and suburban teens alongside local hipsters. One of my favourites, Kops Records, (229 Queen W) sells turntables and other audio equipment as well as new records by popular artists and DJ staples. I bought records as modern as Arcade Fire’s Funeral and Kanye West’s Late Registration there. If you’re a collector, go up the stairway to Vintage Sounds, you’ll find a treasure chest of used classic albums: The Beatles, Pink Floyd, and the Frank Zappa originals that I’m always seeking. 

Rotate This will be open in its new location on June 1st, after being a fixture for 18 years just down the block. They sell mostly new, but some used records, and are known as for stocking a lot of Canadian indie - I found Apostle of Hustle’s Folkloric Feel on vinyl there and it made my year. The second floor of the former Songbird building will house Suspect Video, which was displaced by the February fire.