I recently began to wonder this as I wandered through the yard sales off M-15 this past Saturday. The whole place was bustling, but a surprising amount of activity was seen near the sections of the rummage sales that had old vinyl records. I'm guilty of this, too- I picked up a record for my own collection, small as it is. It seems like there's been a resurgence in interest towards vinyl in the last couple of years, punctuated by the rising tide of music record sales. My question is, why?
When I bought records in college (like ten years ago) it was because it was an excuse to do nothing but listen to an album. It's a lot more involved than pushing play, having to cue up and flip it. So I'd get high as shit and tune out to Axis: Bold as Love or Wish You Were Here. I also paid like $3 each for them so that was nice.
You were ahead of the wave. Before it was hip. You'd be paying far above retail for a slightly scuffed copy of Bold now. I've got a little collection. I appreciate it for the art and like you said, the intimacy. Music is music. I don't buy into the nostalgia factor but like Butterfly said it feels good to hold a real masterpiece in your hands.
I really dislike the nostalgia thing, it's a cop-out and a reason to give for liking something when you don't have a real reason to do so. The only time I find it acceptable is if it's something you find to be bad but still listen to it because it reminds you of something. That's it. You can still find some stores that sell good, old records for very cheap. They're just few and far between.
If you go to enough thrift stores over a long enough time, you can find brilliant records for very cheap. However, it requires a lot of patience and time. It may be harder than it was two or three years ago, but my experiences (such as finding two copies of Quadrophenia in good condition at one Goodwill) are no more out of date than that. I do recommend garage sales and thrift (like, real thrift - Goodwill, Salvation Army) stores if you're going to go this route though. Any records at a farmer's market have already been sourced this way and up-priced. Garage sales are going to be hit or miss but if you find someone selling what was a great collection (hopefully of an uncle's/aunt's or grandparent's; a collection they're not too attached to), you've got a goldmine in front of you that's usually going to be pretty cheap too. Of course, it is easy to find records online and you can usually get them there for cheaper than you would at a farmer's market or a shop that specializes in records. I got Harvest for about $7-8 online, I suspect it would go for about $20-25 if I'd find a place and bought it in person.
You used to be able to find good records in thrift stores for a dollar. Now it's all Lawrence Welk and shitty gospel groups with bad haircuts. Of which I've bought a couple for my own purposes. I'm not complaining it's just interesting how vinyl went from trash to treasure. The best thing no one has mentioned is the art. 12x12 is so much better than any other format for a cover:
There is always going to be a market for physical representations of art, whether that's a painting, photograph, sculpture or music. This is why cassettes and records are having a renaissance. CDs are physical too, but the music is still a digital 'intangible' file. Vinyl is based in physics, cassettes are analog tapes. For the same reason why when you go to the museum, you'll look at a painting anywhere from 30 seconds to 10 minutes. You could see the same painting on your phone, but close it before really taking anything in. Owning a physical thing is a different experience from purchasing a tune online, which will look no different from the other tunes that were pirated. Will it last? I think the cassette thing is a fad. Vinyl might stick around a bit longer. Digital is pretty much the best it's going to get. 48K 24B Stereo or Multichannel .wav, anything more than that and you'll be hard pressed to find anyone who can tell the difference. They might make better algorithms to make their file sized smaller, but why? HD space is becoming an issue of the past. Digital has peaked. If I were to guess for what's next, somewhere is going to invent a superior vinyl, a physical representation of music that has a better lifespan and occupies the same frequencies as digital. It will be large enough to allow for beautiful artwork but thin enough to store with a bin of others.
You hit on all the points I was going to make. I don't think vinyl is much of a fad, but I agree with cassettes to an extent. There will always be a niche market for them, but I'm also a person who will pick up 8-tracks from thrift stores from time to time so... People like to have a feeling of ownership over their music, and the tangibility of that which is provided by physical media is lost entirely when you're dealing with digital music. You can walk into a persons apartment and tell a few things about them by looking at their music collection if it's physical, and it's a point of pride for a lot of people.
Hipsters. There's been quite a large jump in how many people are interested in "quality headphones" (as I'm the guy the come to for asking about it), and generally with better headphones these people also get interested in FLAC, high-quality MP3s, and despite the misinformation, vinyl. Older people see it as nostalgia, younger people see it as hipster/high-quality. The real question is: are these new vinyls directly recorded, or edited digitally first?
I think people are collecting vinyl because its nice to have an artifact. It's the same reason that people still read books. You can have it all on a kindle or you can have the artifact, like a trophy up on the shelf. I collect because it's nice to see, hold, smell the package. As someone that has released two albums, I know how much time, effort and resources go in to making the packaging/artwork for an album. I enjoy that. This is something that MP3's cannot replicate. It's not about sound for me, it's about physicality.The real question is: are these new vinyls directly recorded, or edited digitally first?
There are very, very few people recording analog these days. In fact, I think there's like one company left making tape. Everything is recorded digitally. Therefore, it's not really even a question.
I realize. I posed the question because any claimed benefits are removed if the music is edited digitally. It has to be direct to vinyl if you are talking about quality. And even then there's still problems with the claim. It's not quite the same as books. The point of a physical book is to be able to flip quickly around the pages, as well as having a source of information/entertainment without a screen or any sort of electricity. Vinyl still has these problems, along with the added problem of needing a vinyl player. I don't see any reason a CD couldn't do the same thing. Release the art fully scaled digitally, then release on CD. Alternatively have a fold-out version included with the CD. I don't see the issue. You could also simply change the packaging for the CD (rather than have the standard case), video games do this. I enjoy the art on my MP3s. I'm not sure what you are talking about. It's actually how I identify what I'm listening to, since all my tags are in Japanese (to accommodate for Last.FM scrobbling). And physical 'stuff' doesn't really interest me. It's more of a pain to switch discs/vinyls when I can simply switch it with a push of a button.There are very, very few people recording analog these days. In fact, I think there's like one company left making tape. Everything is recorded digitally. Therefore, it's not really even a question.
I think people are collecting vinyl because its nice to have an artifact. It's the same reason that people still read books.
I know how much time, effort and resources go in to making the packaging/artwork for an album.
I enjoy that. This is something that MP3's cannot replicate.
Personally, if I pay 10 or $15 for an album I want to have a tangible product in my hands. Vinyl records are a lot more aesthetically pleasing than a CD or cassette. Also, your vinyl collection is something to show off and discuss in depth with people. Your mp3 collection? Not so much.
It's tactile, it's multimedia (audio + visual as opposed to just audio), it provides a different, more long form experience, there is a lot of old media that never made beyond vinyl, old classics are cheap, and new vinyl releases are usually premium items that pay a lot of attention to the visual aspect (and give you a digital download as well often). Vinyl shops have always existed, but I don't think it's a coincidence that they are now thriving when digital streaming and downloads are in ascendence.
Yeah, I wasn't very clear. Modern vinyl is a premium product that gives you a digital download and doesn't neglect the visual component generally. Contrast that with vintage vinyl where you can score some awesome albums for not much at all, even with the explosion in popularity. But yeah, no such thing as brand new vinyl that isn't expensive as far as anything I've seen.