You drop the needle. The music begins—but not before a little crackle, a tick, maybe a faint whoosh as the stylus rides the groove. Some call it charm. Others call it distraction. But either way, it’s part of the vinyl experience.
And for many of us, it’s part of what keeps us coming back.
Technically, those pops and ticks are flaws. They’re dust, static, imperfections in the groove. They’re not part of the music. In fact, we spend a lot of time and effort trying to clean them out—using anti-static brushes, ultrasonic cleaners, vacuum machines, special sleeves. And for good reason: when noise overwhelms the signal, it breaks the illusion. You stop listening to the music and start hearing the medium.
But not all noise is bad.
There’s something about the gentle crackle under a quiet intro that puts us in a different headspace. It feels analog. Physical. Like something real is happening in the room. We’re not playing a file—we’re playing a record. A thing. And that subtle reminder—that this is a mechanical event, a needle dragging through vinyl—connects us to the moment in a way digital sometimes doesn’t.
It’s a reminder that perfection isn’t always the goal. Emotional truth is. And sometimes, that truth comes wrapped in a little surface noise.
So are pops and ticks part of the experience? They can be. Should be. As long as they don’t get in the way of the music, they remind us we’re listening to something physical. Something alive. And in an age where most sound is streamed and stored in invisible 1s and 0s, that matters.
It’s not about nostalgia. It’s about presence. And a little crackle, now and then, is a small price to pay for that.
