Here’s why- vinyl is a superior format, and it is one that any serious music fan should consider investing themselves in.
But nobody is listening to or buying vinyl anymore!
Well, there is actually an entire day devoted to buying vinyl, aptly called Record Store Day. According to their website, the first record store day in 2008 included 300 stores and grew to over 1,000 by 2013. At Joe’s Albums (the local record store here in Worcester) owner Joe Demers actually calculated the number of sales he made, saying that he rang up one transaction every 6.5 minutes for eight and a half hours. In fact, according to the Nielsen Soundscan, vinyl is the only music format that continually grows by double-digit margins and for the first time, two years ago vinyl sales surpassed digital downloads by 10%.
Well, what if I want to take my music with me?
You can! Depending on how dedicated you are to the format, that is… You can’t travel with a crate full of LPs the way you can travel with a binder full of CDs or an iPod in your pocket. However, manufacturers like Crosley, have gone back to making small portable “suitcase” turntables with built in speakers for your vinyl on the go needs. These same turntables also come with a modern touch – a USB jack. You can connect your turntable to your computer to create digital copies of the entire album. Also, many modern vinyl releases come with a download card.
Ugh, but it is so expensive…
Not really. First stop for cheap or free music is your relative’s basements. If it happens to be a gold mine down there then you are on the right track. If not, you head to the local record shop, where people buy trade and sell record collections at a price which is well under that of a new release. Cheaper than iTunes. As with any art form, some of the appreciation come from being able to share your love of it with someone else and more often than not, that someone else is the guy behind the counter at the record store.
If you are looking for a new release, well – you are going to spend some more cash. But look at everything you gain! Better sound quality, well designed package with artwork and lyrics, photos and descriptions – but best of all – a physical copy of your music! You can’t hold an MP3. They can be opened, or felt. There aren’t liner notes or lyrics of photos. And don’t get me started on the ultimate form of detachment – digitally streaming music services. People – digital music creates a void rather than filling one. They create physical and emotional detachment. An MP3 is empty space, its all ones and zeroes. I am a firm believer that you’ll view emptying your hard drive of music a lot differently than you would hitting a virtual “delete” button to make your albums disappear.
What about my iPod? I NEED it!
Look – vinyl isn’t going to make your iPod obsolete – Apple is going to make your iPod obsolete. In fact, they already have. Your iPod has become outdated faster than a turntable has.
Yeah. Think about that.
The same turntable that was used in the 1970s isn’t that much different or worse than one made this year. At the rate that our technology advances, an iPod, and likely, our precious smart phones will become antiquated before the turntable your parents bought forty years ago.
The reality is that, in the world that we live in, we need something that we can physically connect with. Vinyl is real. Concrete. In this fast paced world it’s nice to have something that bogs you down. The amount of careful handling that you need to do with your music makes you appreciate it even more. In fact, there is music available on vinyl that isn’t available on any other format – some albums just didn’t make the cut when companies started to digitize music.
When you are physically interacting with the medium, you are mentally and emotionally involved with the music that you are listening to. If you think back, the 90’s and the early 2000’s were all about clarity. Things were getting smaller (like phones, home sound equipment, portable devices) and that meant NO noisy vinyl. When in fact, the noise doesn’t bother most people. Most people have been told there is warmth to vinyl. Well… there is. Especially when it’s so worn out it sounds like a fire crackling. That shit is noisy, but when you get a great copy of something, something that doesn’t last forever but in the moment you can appreciate it, there is nothing like that feeling. Digital is cold. Period. Digital is all zeros and ones. Early on they decided on the algorithm that would replace the analog curves, but they’re not correct. They are off and our ears hate it.
One of my favorite artists, Mike Viola – is native of Stoughton, Massachusetts. Viola has been working in L.A. in collaboration on movie soundtracks such as ‘Get Him to The Greek”, “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story” and in 1996’s Tom Hank’s film “That Thing You Do”. In an personal interview I conducted with him in 2013, he had the following to say about being a musician who records with the intent of pressing vinyl:
“The reason why I have been releasing my stuff on vinyl (sometimes exclusively on vinyl) since 2005 is that it takes work. It takes work to make the money to print them, work to make fans to buy them, work to ship them, you make WAY less profit, but you gain a level of integrity and accomplishment that I can only compare to something like painting a huge canvas…or a huge wall…meaning…you could have chosen a little canvas…or a little slab of wall…but you went big…you made it a pain in the arse so you could feel it, and people would either find it hard to ignore. They can hate it… but they can’t ignore it.”
Okay, just stop – maybe I’ll thing about it…
So why are people going out to buy the copy of that vinyl record after they already downloaded it for free two weeks before hand? Because vinyl is real and it is tangible. It not only sounds better, but scientifically, the grooves of a vinyl record translate sound better than a flat, compressed digital file, whether it be a CD or MP3. The packaging is nicer. It gives you something to open up, look at and read.
It can be damaged – and yes that is a worth mentioning while trying to persuade you because it means its real and that you have to interact with it, and take care of something. You get all of this and the modification in technology which has allowed the turntable to keep up with your precious iPod. Every LP you buy is an investment in your personal time and the time of the people who worked to create it. If you buy it from a locally owned store, it becomes an investment in your community.
Can you get any of that with an MP3? No. You can not. So, for the love of music, do yourself a favor and go buy a vinyl record. Listen to it. Bask in the analogical glory.
You can thank me later.