«
»

Why Vinyl?

Posted By:
Matt
Posted On:
December 14th, 2008
Posted In:
Blog, Music
Comments:
7 Responses, Join The Conversation.

I didn’t grow up listening to music on vinyl records; I had a few kids albums when I was really young but by the time I was old enough to buy my own music cassette tapes were the mainstream. My Dad had lots of records and listened to them on a regular basis, loud, with headphones on. When CDs became the mainstream and all of my Dad’s favourite albums were purchased on CD the cassette player was removed from the home stereo system, a CD player was added, the record player stayed, and my Dad still listened to records turned up loud with headphones on. Now CDs are basically dead; new music is consumed in the form of MP3s whether obtained legally or not. I have a huge collection of CDs that I never touch, they mean nothing to me, I have no connection to the physical CD, the music was ripped from the CD to my computer long ago and I haven’t interacted with the CD in years. Listening to music has become passive, there’s no physical interaction anymore.

I recently received a record player as a gift from Alison and I instantly fell in love with vinyl. Music has become interactive again! I carefully remove the record from it’s sleeve, you can’t throw it around, it’s not indestructible; I put the record on the player, make sure the size and speed are set properly; I clean the record, lift the needle cover and lower the needle. It’s a ritual, it takes time, I’m doing something more than listening, I’m involved and how good the record sounds depends on me. Half way through the album I have to get up and flip it, clean it and play it, like stoking a fire. The packaging is bigger than a CD or cassette, the pictures are bigger, the liner notes and lyrics are easier to read. I feel like I’ve bought something real, something permanent.

I think a lot more thought was put into the entire structure of the album when vinyl was the mainstream. There’s no skip button so skipping a track is a real chore; you have to get up, stop the record, lift the needle, turn on a light, find the tiny line that separates tracks and try to place the needle in the exact right spot. Bands made albums that you’d want to listen to all the way through, no one wanted a bad track right in the middle of an album side so the bad tracks were left off. If you just liked one song you could buy a single and the single usually came with a bonus song on the other side. Music was better because it had to be.

The trend now is to offer free MP3 downloads of an album when you buy it on vinyl, it’s perfect; you get the vinyl for home listening and the MP3 for you iPod, the best of both worlds; the interaction and ritual of vinyl with the portability and convenience of an MP3. I wouldn’t be surprised if bands just stopped producing CDs in the future.

I’m hooked on vinyl; the ritual, the interaction, the permanence and the sound quality; it’s all too perfect and it’s how music should be enjoyed.

Similar Posts:

  • aktt_notify_twitter: yes
  • background: url(/images/backgrounds/Records.jpg) top center
  • aktt_tweeted: 1

Comments

  1. Rob Lambert Says:
    December 14th, 2008 at 11:20 pm

    Great post, Matt. I 100% agree. I love the “experience”. And the vinyl+MP3 is the perfect “best of both worlds” – I hope that more and more labels/artists offer this option.

    Just getting rolling on my vinyl record site: http://wax.fm Would love to get any feedback and suggestions for the site!

    Later

  2. musicobsession Says:
    December 15th, 2008 at 4:48 am

    I agree vinyl plus mp3 for portability are soul mates.

  3. zdeiv Says:
    December 16th, 2008 at 2:17 pm

    i read an article a while back about the shelf life of audio formats. . .
    vinyl is the closest to indestructible. it actually lasts.

    “Vinyl doesn’t oxidize to any measurable extent. It is suggested that vinyl records will have a life span comparable to fine parchment paper if cared for properly. Somewhere in the 100s to 1,000s of years.

    Various authorities suggest that, depending on the care taken during the manufacturing process, CDs will last between 20 and 100 years… perhaps longer.”

  4. Dad Says:
    December 17th, 2008 at 9:34 pm

    MP3′s make the music sound really clear and clean. It really was an event when you were listening to vinyl.You had to go into the room where you kept the equipment that was required to listen to music,(keep my IPOD in my pocket) take the time to flip through your album collection until you found what you were looking for, and then the whole ritual of putting it on the platter and queuing it up. After all that effort it became a commitment. I really want to listen to this. I will sit in the room with the album jacket in hand and take out the insert with the Band’s bio, all the recording info and more often than not the track listing with lyrics included! I was actually listening to the music, it wasn’t just background noise. I knew the track names and most of the words. MP3′s have taken a lot of that away. As I sit here at the computer I am listening to Jamie Cullum on my IPOD(headphones included). I don’t know the name of the track nor most of the words. It really does sound crisp clear clean.

  5. Robb Says:
    December 17th, 2008 at 10:39 pm

    Vinyl WILL kill the CD. They are already being produced in much smaller numbers. In Europe Vinyl sales have been steadily increasing in recent years, despite the proclamation 5yrs ago that vinyl was dead. The killer combo of vinyl & MP3 is the best of both worlds without a doubt.

    I have over 2 tonnes of records, and will never let them go, they are all a part of me and how I got to where I am.

    Viva Vinyl!!

  6. kat Says:
    December 17th, 2008 at 11:46 pm

    @robb: two tons of vinyl…wow!! that’s intense :)

    i totally agree that vinyl will outlive CDs! i love the ritual of listening to vinyl. like Dad said, there’s a room for it (and likely you’ve taken care to ‘set up’ the room so it has the ideal conditions, mood and atmosphere for a ‘listening station’), and it’s active. it’s like the difference between an activity like reading (active) and watching tv (passive). you are actually part of the activity instead of this 21st century bullshit of multitasking.

    yeah sure, sometimes it’s a pain to have to get up after six songs to switch the side, but it re-injects some action into the activity again. the days before the mp3 came along were all about the experience of listening to an album the way it was intended to be heard and less about the ‘single’ or the mixtape.

    oh, and i love buying 7 inches!! i love the artwork or when the record itself is a different colour. i remember back in the day buying a record and then just sitting around listening to it with the liner notes (on a huge sleeve back in the day, not an illegible booklet like nowadays) and memorizing lyrics

  7. kat Says:
    December 17th, 2008 at 11:53 pm

    p.s.: i can’t find the actual tshirt, but the American Analog Set one that i have looks similar to this (i’ll wear it tomorrow so you can see): http://cgi.ebay.com/MP3-Player-Vinyl-12-Audio-T-Shirt-2XL-Musician-DJ_W0QQitemZ360083883477QQcmdZViewItem

Show Background