Ah the joy of a new CD or record. I can’t wait to open it up and read the little booklet inside or the sleeve that the record is in. Those liner notes. Good ones tell the story of the recording. I love liner notes. We won’t discuss bad ones here. But good ones. Oh yeah.
When I was a teen and I would get a new CD or record the first thing I did was open it up and read the liner notes. Usually while I was listening to said CD or record for the first time. I still do this. I love reading the lyrics to the songs. And who wrote them. And even 
the names of the publishing companies they are under. You can learn things about the writers just through that. And then if they list the musicians, singers, arrangers, producers and such as well, that is always more fun. Oh, and the recording studios. You can see who might have played with whom and maybe where connections were made. There might even be a guest artist who played or sang on a song or two. Like, Joe Walsh on an early Andy Gibb song. Or Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham on the Bob Welch song ‘Sentimental Lady’. Or finding Toni Tennille from The Captain and Tennille in the credits of Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’. Yes.
You can even learn bits with the thank yous that are sometimes included. That’s fun because you might get a hint at someone who was involved but maybe not really credited.
I love good liner notes. I especially like the ones that really tell about the recording. Maybe something about each song or the whole idea behind the recording. Like why they wanted to make it. I also like the ones to CD’s that are a compilation, like a retrospective or Greatest Hits, where someone has written a tribute to the artist or even a history of them and their place in music history. I’ve come across a couple of these lately that really shed light on the significance of the groups they reference.
Liner notes are why I still have CD’s and records. Liner notes are what we don’t get with our digital music. Liner notes help to tell the story of musical history. They tell us that George A. Nevermind wrote the song ‘Sugar Walls’ on Sheena Easton’s ‘Private Heaven’ album, and, well, we all know George as Prince. Or that Phil Collins played drums and produced a track on Frida’s (from ABBA fame) record that included the ‘80’s hit ‘I Know There’s Something Going On’. Liner notes tell us that Diane Warren who wrote Cher’s hit ‘If I Could Turn Back Time’ co-wrote songs with Desmond Child and even Michael Bolton. And, if you didn’t already know, you would learn from the liner notes that ‘Islands in the Stream’ is a Gibb brothers song. Liner notes are how we find out all these sorts of things.
And liner notes are why I don’t really purchase my music digitally if I can avoid it. I would rather have the physical copy of the recording, even as I run out out of self space. I’d rather have the liner notes and then have to rip the music to my computer to get it on my phone, than to not have all the great information and story there in those liner notes.