All I Want For Christmas Is An Eco-Friendly Physical Format!

If you're one of the few, but many, who go about the experience of listening to vinyl albums in much the same way Steve Carell's "40 Year-Old Virgin" went about preparing to dig into the ginormous "box o' porn" he'd been gifted, then you've probably also wondered why, with the planet teetering on the very brink of no return, there is not yet an eco-friendly alternative to all current physical music formats, which rely upon fossil fuels, to varying degrees, for their production.

Like you, I presume, my love affair with vinyl records is downright Pavlovian: The crackle of the needle touching down alone can make the hairs on the back of my arse stand right on end. There is no greater joy than hearing those speakers coming to life as you grab the album cover and immerse yourself in the visual representation of the musical journey you are about to take.

Sit back, relax, but don't get too comfortable, though, because you'll need to flip the album over in about fifteen minutes or so.

Also, is there any other product where the exterior packaging was retained after opening and considered a vital part of the overall experience? I ask only because, when it came to CD long boxes later on, we couldn't wait to chuck those things in the trash. 

Yet there are many who cannot truly enjoy Pink Floyd's The Wall, Bruce Springsteen's Born To Run, or, for that matter, Starz's Attention Shoppers, without holding the album cover and assorted contents in our hot little hands.

Hell, half the reason I find myself cheering on the continuing comebacks of vinyl is so that I can READ THE FUCKING LINER NOTES.

So why, some fifty years after we first put a man on the damn moon and The Archies' "Sugar Sugar" on the back of a cereal box, are we not up to our naughty bits in eco-friendly physical music formats? 

That would be at least some small consolation for the compete absence of flying cars in the 21st Century, which we were also promised!

While I applaud those traditional pressing plants that are now "attempting to make their process as eco-friendly as possible", he/she who finds a sustainable physical format will determine the course of modern music.