Whether you’re a self–professed hipster or the sight of a man–bun makes your hips–stir, it feels like nowadays everyone is obsessed with vinyl. You know, those big black CD’s that your grandpa used to listen to Dean Martin on.
Sales of vinyl reached a 25–year high in 2016, according to the Guardian. Most people chalk up the rise in sales to a sense of nostalgia, but how can we long for something that we’ve never missed?
On days like National Record Day—held one Saturday every April—or the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ first performance on the Ed Sullivan show (eep!), record stores were filled with teeny–boppers and 20–year–olds in black, myself included, while our parents opted to download the Fab Four’s anthology on iTunes.
We post–Millenials are rediscovering music and the art of making a record in a new way. While we’ve lived through the age of CDs and mixtapes and reveled in the minimalism of the mp3 and iPod shuffle, we’re now tastefully regressing to the 12 inch EP.
According to the Forbes, for the past 8 years whenever an artist goes down (RIP), sales go up.
Take David Bowie for example. His posthumously released “Blackstar” was the most popularly selling album of last year, but most of the buyers weren’t of the generation that originally listened to his music (read: our parents). Even if there’s nary a turn table in sight, it’s near guaranteed that you can find at least one record in anyone’s bedroom, whether it be hung on the wall or artfully racked in a bookshelf or stacked on a coffee table. It seems that the more things become sucked into to the matrix of digitization, the more we want to have something physical to hold.
It’s not just the stars of the past who are benefiting from the vinyl revival. Today’s artists are turning to the ol’ plastic–press, with artists like Adele and The Arctic Monkeys—hell, even friggin Justin Bieber rolled out a purple vinyl copy of My World 2.0—debuting albums on vinyl or at least offering a Deluxe Album edition tucked into the crates of Urban Outfitters.
But for all this conversation about vinyl—and why millennials are so obsessed with collecting it—no one is talking about the benefits of buying a physical album to artists and listeners alike. In a time where getting music for free on your laptop is arguably easier than going into a store and buying a copy (or even waiting for iTunes or Spotify to load on slow wifi), vinyl guarantees that the artist and the store selling the music are making a profit. If you don’t have a $30 candy–colored turntable from Urban Outfitters—no tea, no shade, no lemonade: I’m guilty—there’s a definitive quality and tone to a record that you just cannot get from a mp3 file, i.e. hearing side 2 of Abbey Road in all of its glory with no breaks between songs and a nice crunch of smooth vinyl at the end.
So for everything we’re missing about music: All hail the return of vinyl.
Please note All comments are eligible for publication in 34th Street Magazine.