One night I was scrolling through Instagram. At that time, I was in the middle of what ended up being a futile attempt to build a conversion camper van so that my wife, dogs, and I could live the #vanlife on weekends. As such, my feed was full of tricked-out vans wandering through the wilderness. Amongst the stream of big boy toys was a post from my favorite local record shop. The 2021 album Promises by the electronic musician Floating Points, avant-garde jazz saxophonist legend Pharoah Sanders, and the London Symphony Orchestra was back in stock. Once I saw the post I immediately went to the shop’s website and placed an order.

I had heard the album earlier that year on Bandcamp and knew it was special. Apparently a lot of people agreed with me, as it ended near or at the summit of many critic and publications year end best of list. These include: Time, Paste, Mojo, the Wire, The New Yorker, Pitchfork, and on and on. It even held the #1 best album of the year spot in Passion of the Weiss, the hip hop website I write for. I was a bit surprised at its broad appeal considering that it is a single, 45ish minute long instrumental electroacoustic composition.

At the same time it was being widely celebrated, it was highly divisive among jazz fans, critics, and musicians. It isn’t a jazz album, but the presence of a luminary such as Sanders made it instant fodder for the jazzerati. I got into a couple, shall we say, “discussions” about the album on Twitter with fellow writers. Hate is a strong word, but I think there was serious hate for this album in some jazz camps. Some of this regarded the music itself (fair enough, individual taste is relative) but some was because of the level of hype and press it was getting when there were so many other great jazz and jazz adjacent albums worth talking about to the same degree. For many in the jazz community, Promises was sucking all of the air out of the room. I get it, I’ve made the same critique of the incessant hype and coverage of every Miles and Trane archival recordings from the past several years.

Promises clearly struck a nerve with a broader public who I am guessing in another cultural moment may not have given it a first or second thought. I surmise that the album hit at the perfect time. Mid-pandemic, there must have been some need among many listeners for something pretty, calm, and relaxing—a piece of music to put us at ease during a very difficult moment in our lives. When life is hard, I will put my money down on beautiful, calming music any day.

I indeed did, put my money down for the LP copy. In terms of it as an object, the Promises LP has everything going for it. The spine is nice and wide so the text is easily readable and findable on my shelves. Even though it is a single LP, it has a gatefold. What makes the gatefold special are three die cut trapezoids in the cover that allowed the artwork inside the gatefold to peak through the cover. The artwork is a reproduction of contemporary artist Julie Mehretu’s 2003 “Congress”—a dynamic, detailed, and graphic ink and acrylic on canvas work. Promises also included an insert with a set of black and white photos of shots from the recording studio, Sanders sitting on a front porch, and a close-up shot of his right hand on his saxophone. It was about as nice an object an LP could be without any crazy bells and whistles like a lenticular cover or a zipper on the front.

When I took the disc itself out of the sleeve it felt hefty in my hands, a pretty good sign that the pressing would sound great. I put it on my turn table and settled onto my couch, ready to melt away into gentle repeating minimalist synthesizer melodies, washes of string sound, and Pharoah Sanders whisper into my ear.

The enveloping calm however, was short lived, as my particular copy had a number of what were minor, albeit significant infelicities: pops, blips, static. Then, naturally, when the side was over (even though there was no break in the music) I got up to flip the record over, interrupting the calm space the music had placed me in. Side B had the same occurrence of sonic imperfections. If this was a garage rock record, whatever, big no deal, but the last thing I want to hear on an ambient album is anything, especially the first time I’m listening to it, is anything that would disrupt the ambience.

I was disappointed that my copy of Promises was less than I hoped for. It’s still very playable, the music is still lovely and affecting, and 99% of the record sounds wonderful. After listening and experiencing this mediocre pressing, I realized that despite how great the packaging was and the beauty of the physical object, the LP format was the less-than-ideal way to listen to this album. For Promises, CD or a digital download are the only way to go: no sound defects, no having to get up midway through, just beauty.

For me, music is the most important thing. It also didn’t include a card for a free download, as so many new records do (although that trend is steadily decreasing). By being slowly convinced over decades that vinyl is generally the best format I had built a habit where in which if it was possible and within my budget, I would buy new music on LP. With the imperfect pressing of Promises, however, I am reminded that sticking to a format out of sheer principle is not always the best method to accumulate and listen to music.

Of course if someone collects 78s, they collect 78s. For collectors like me, though, who are into a little bit of everything, sticking with one format can close the door to the more opportune or advantageous ways of finding and listening to music. My experience with Promises reminded me that being tied to a certain format, like many record collectors are, can be misguided and limiting.

At the same time, trying to expect every new record to sound perfect isn’t particularly helpful either. I have this nasty perfectionist streak that when combined with my tendency to overthink things and general anxiety, I can end up getting frustrated with records that don’t sound great and I can tend to end up taking them into the record shop for trade. My supposed logic is, if it sounds crappy, I don’t want it. I’ve had plenty of other reissue LPs—a couple by saxophonist Hank Mobley and avant-garde jazz Afro-futurist interstellar traveler Sun Ra happen to stand out in my mind—that I got rid of because they didn’t sound good. I still have not replaced those albums with better sounding versions and I haven’t heard either of those albums in many many years. I suppose there’s Spotify.

In the instance of Promises, unlike in the past I probably would have traded it in because it wasn’t perfect and then never ended up replacing it with a CD copy, I will hold onto it, continue to listen to it, and enjoy it. It may not be ideal, but it has taken me years and years to learn that having an album that I want is better than not having that album. Listening is better than not.

Since buying Promises, I have bought very little new vinyl, partly because it continues to get more and more expensive, but primarily because I have become a bit more discerning and thoughtful about what format lends itself best to hearing a particular album. A drone or ambient album that is only one track long that would be disrupted by flipping a record over and needs absolutely faithful audio fidelity? CD or digital all the way. Same thing with free jazz albums with long songs that don’t fit onto a single side. But a pop or rock or noise rap album with shorter songs and a sonic environment where one imperfection won’t even be noticed? If JPEGMAFIA x Danny Brown released Scaring the Hoes (2023) on vinyl I would snatch that up immediately, even though I already bought the Bandcamp download—its noisy grit might sound even better on a shitty pressing. Give me that sweet slab of wax, unless it’s over-priced.

The Promises LP as an object is wonderful for many reasons, and the music it contains is wondrous. Its imperfections, however, are a gentle reminder that sometimes the things we love unconditionally might not love us back in the way we have come to expect. I still love vinyl, but for new albums, that love is diminished. I’m not sad about it, just more realistic and clear-eyed about the limits of what vinyl can consistently deliver.