This is a Playlist.

Keeping Our 45 RPM Singles Organized. 1961.

This is a playlist. It was how we kept our 45 rpm singles organized, and ready to carry to our gang's weekend night parties. I guess you could call the plain box with a handle the "playlist app," if that's not too much of a stretch. If you look at the instructions ("Index Preparation," above), you'll note a "corresponding gummed number." That is how if a number of us brought records to a party, we could find what belonged to us at the end of the night.

This playlist, records, and box are more than 60 years old, from 1960-1961, and in excellent condition. I found it last week in the corner of a closet just behind the desk at which I am sitting now, hiding in plain sight. This project was started in sixth grade, the pivotal year in which I dedicated myself to the one I love: Records. I was apathetic and uninterested in school: I lived for the music. If I knew that studying these records, not just the sounds but what was written on the labels, would become the foundation of my career and …