“It was like your fingerprint. The pattern of the little crackling noises could help you identify whose record it was.”
Kojima said that as a young man he bought records he loved but hardly listened to them directly: he would copy them to tape and for daily listening he used his Sony Walkman, because vinyl gets damaged — each play added little crackling noises, and the pattern of those crackles became like a fingerprint that could identify whose record it was. He cleaned records with spray, as people did then. He liked imported pressings — songs ordered differently than the Japanese edition, different covers, records purchased without understanding the cover (often in German) — and the large LP sleeves made walking home from the record shop feel like showing off, to the point that a friend would stop him to ask what he was carrying.
“I buy some record with a cover that I couldn't understand, with no Japanese written on it at all. It would be in like German. […] You walk home carrying one, and you feel so cool. […] the more you listen to it, the more audio noise would occur. It was like your fingerprint. […] For daily listening, I always listened to tapes on my Sony Walkman.”