A proper justification for vinyl

[Guy Rowland]

It was never that it sounds better.

This is a solid argument.

https://www.production-expert.com/produ ... hole-point

Streaming aims to remove every barrier between you and the music. Get to anything instantly, from anywhere, with lossless quality at the highest possible spec. That’s a genuinely useful problem to solve. Nobody’s arguing against this modern miracle.

But access was never the real issue; the real challenge is attention. The industry built all this technology to solve a problem that didn’t exist, and in doing so, made the real problem even worse.

A stream costs nothing to start or abandon. Skip it, half-listen to it, let it run under a conversation. Nothing about the format asks anything of you, so nothing about the experience demands much back.

If the great internet experiment has proved anything, then it’s that ubiquity is overrated.

A record works the other way round. You choose it before a note plays. You commit to a side, twenty-odd minutes, no skipping to the next hit, no shuffle logic overriding the sequence the artist or mastering engineer actually built. The friction is the feature. Remove it, as streaming has, and you remove the thing that made you pay attention in the first place.

Russ Hughes goes on to argue that there is an even bigger deal.

I recently rewatched the movie High Fidelity. Rob (John Cusak) is depressed after his girlfriend leaves him, and decides to rearrange his vinyl collection.

]Dick: I guess it looks as if you’re reorganizing your records. What is this though? Chronological?
Rob: No…
Dick: Not alphabetical…
Rob: Nope…
Dick: What?
Rob: Autobiographical.
Dick: [MIND BLOWN] No fucking way.

Streaming.... plays, then disappears into the endless catalogue of songs you’ve half-listened to. There’s nothing to show you picked it, when you did, or why it mattered.

A record does the opposite. It sits on your shelf as proof, not proof of the music itself, since anyone can hear that, but proof that you chose it at a certain time for a certain reason.

I think he's got it.

[Lawrence]

The ephemeral nature of digital audio has disconcerted me for a good while.

I grew up wanting to make records, and I did make a few. Then vinyl went out of fashion.

CD’s came along, and I wanted to make those. Those too went out of fashion.

I don’t know anyone who aspired to make a lot of ones and zeros.

As far as record collections, I knew folks who had hundreds and hundreds, class A amps and speakers, expensive turntables. I was moving around too much to be a collector, but I loved visiting friends with great collections. They usually had great taste and a depth of knowledge that was educational. Their collections were always organized idiosyncratically.

[Piet De Ridder]

David Hepworth wrote a very readable book — Hepworth's books are not always great, but most of them are definitely good and invariably very readable — about the history of 'the album' (which, obviously, runs parallel to the golden era of the LP), called A Fabulous Creation. And it pairs *very* well with another one of his: Uncommon People: The Rise and Fall of the Rock Stars (which, roughly, covers much the same period: mid-60's > 80's.)

And a documentary that could have been better than it is, but still is worth your time (if, of course, you're interested in the subject matter): BBC4's "When Albums Ruled The World".




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[Guy Rowland]

CDs, in retrospect were a stepping stone, weren't they? Skip to any track instantly. We just moved on to "skip to any track ever made instantly".

I never bought into the audiophile vinyl purists back then. But I missed two things - the artwork and the two sides. Often albums would feel different from one side to the other, and track 1 side 2 was always a pivotal choice. It just ain't the same in a big long list.

People can fetishise the ritual of putting the vinyl on, cleaning the disc and stylus and then the record THWIP and rumble, the anticipation that it was about to begin. Most of us at the time would love to have eliminated the rumble, crackles and pops (and distortion - I always found it built up towards the centre of the disc which I hated).

But the rituals and especially the lead-in did undeniably make playing a record more of a thing. and - oh yes - buying and listening to a new album mattered. Mattered terribly.

[Markus K]

One of the more surprising experiences I made with young students I have is that they are buying vinyl again.
I have a young girl highly talented and far ahead of her age of 15. Talking with her what music she listens to and how, she said she loves listening to vinyl records. She loves that crackling in the beginning which gives her a nice cosy feeling. I was totally baffled. I thought those kids don't even know what a turntable is. Others buy records also for their art work to hang it on the wall.
And honestly I totally get it. This feeling of reading the liner notes looking at the art work and listen to the music is something unique you don't get from streaming. And it seems to become a thing for listeners again on a different level then it has been in times when it was the only source for listening. More like brewing carefully a high quality Japanese tea and enjoying it compared to opening a bottle of soft drink or instant coffee.
For us musicians this is good news I suppose.

[Guy Rowland]

Your last analogy, Markus - I think vinyl taps into a feeling of "this was made" as opposed to "this just appeared." It's a closer bond with the artists I guess.

I think we will see more if this in the AI backlash.