Sujit G Ponoth remembers the day 21-year-old Rahul Nair walked into his record story—JD’s Jukebox in Kochi. “It was the first time the youngster was seeing physical records,” says the 47-year-old Ponoth, who amassed his collection over the last 12 years. As Nair wandered around the store looking at all the different styles of music, his eyes lit up as he found Eminem’s record, Recovery, released in 2010. The youngster was overwhelmed. “In my life, I have only seen Eminem on the phone. This is the first time I have seen something physically connected to Eminem,” he smiled with wonder.
Ponoth understood how he felt. His store boasts over 6,000 vinyl records. The collection includes the Who’s Who of music in the past 50 years— Elton John, Carpenters, Abba, Boney M, Paul Anka, Elvis Presley, Queen, Police, Engelbert Humperdinck, Pink Floyd, Rod Stewart and more. He also has an extensive Hindi and Tamil section. The prices range from `800-`8,000 per record. George Michael’s Faith (1988)—a picture disc that shows a printed image on the record instead of the black vinyl colour—sells for the maximum price.
Asked about the high prices, Ponoth says, “It’s a question of supply and demand.” His customers range from all walks of life—from a 15-year-old to an 80-plus music lover. Some don’t even have record players at their home, but they still buy a disc as a souvenir. What is the difference between analogue and digital music? “Analogue music is natural. It will sound the way you and I are talking now. While as soon as we record the sounds around us, it becomes digital; the music loses its frequencies. It will not sound natural,” says Ponoth, adding that people like analogue music because it is as close to listening to the music live. “The recording process eliminates all extraneous sounds. Digital music is artificially doctored to sound perfect,” says the enthusiast, who bought the records from countries like Sri Lanka, the UK, US, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, the UAE besides Indian cities like Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai. “Mumbai is the place from where I got the most records,” he says.
After listening to almost every record, he has graded it according to the level of clarity. It goes from ‘Mint—As Good as New’ to ‘Poor—Best Avoidable’. Regarding maintenance, he says the best way to start is to use paraben-free soap and distilled water. “Both have the least amount of impurities. You spray on the record. Then you wipe it dry. Nowadays, you can put it in a wet/dry vacuum machine. Each side takes about two minutes.” What is the future of analogue music? “It will remain a niche till the end of time, just like physical books,” he smiles.