I’ve often lamented the loss of key pieces of my own collection of vinyl. I have always loved the smell of a record, the feel of it, the way the static charge is released from it when you crack the plastic for the first time and pull the record from its sleeve. I love the warmth of vinyl records, the way it sounds, and even the inconvenience of having to turn the record over to hear the other side. My love affair with vinyl is lifelong and, up until recently, I thought it made me a dinosaur in the animal kingdom, clutching desperately onto the last shred of my childhood memories in some foul attempt to recapture the magic.
It came as a huge surprise to learn that there is a resurgent interest in vinyl — so great, in fact, that sales of 45 RPM records in Great Britain surpassed the 1 million mark in 2005. It’s the first time since 1998 that vinyl record sales have even reached the 1 million mark, and it appears to be no random occurrence.
The reasons for this resurgence make a great deal of sense if you sit down and think about it. One possibility is that the sons and daughters of the working class are searching for symbols of their importance to artistry through music. The same kids whom our world has pressed and pressured towards learning and embracing technology have, in some ways, shunned technology as a way of demonstrating their independence from the status quo. In their music and their art, they see technology as representative of the establishment against which anxious youth are bound for rebellion. While millions of young people are downloading and burning music to CD’s, the working class have neither the wherewithal nor the interest to learn how to burn CD’s. This generation finally got tired of being pressured into upgrading their technology and said, “Why should we?”
In the same regard, vinyl records, while not piracy-proof, offer limited options to consumers for conversion to digital format. Though there are products on the market like the Numark TTUSB Turntable with USB output which allows a user to convert their vinyl records to MP3’s, it’s not a very convenient option. Sure, you can slap that vinyl on the turntable and boot up your computer. However, if you’re used to ripping a CD to MP3 in a few minutes, you’re in for a surprise. Unlike conventional CD methods, vinyl records have to be converted at standard speed. In our busy world, people don’t really want to take the time to convert their records one at a time to MP3’s because they don’t have time.
Yet another important thing to remember is that owning a vinyl record represents a special connection to the music you love. It’s like a tiny piece of art that an individual person can have for themselves — beautifully packaged or brightly-colored vinyl has never lost its collectible value. With recent limited runs of vinyl from any number of modern artists (including Radiohead, Arctic Monkeys and White Stripes) pushing individual sales of records, music fans are proving that they continue to have respect for the art and artistry of the music and the representative releases of those creating the music.
In this day where MySpace, MP3 blogs, and P2P drive the tastes of popular music, it’s actually warming to my heart to see that vinyl is not dead. I know what its like to have that love of vinyl, to embrace the physical record and place it on the turntable, to put the stylus down on the groove and hear the sweet sounds come pouring out. Since the music industry is responsible for steering everyone towards the compact disc over 20 years ago, why not employ the same steering methods to start a backwards momentum? If they want to, it’s an excellent time to revisit their power to steer popular culture by starting to release music exclusively in vinyl or digital format. I say if the kids want a CD, they can burn them for themselves. For all our modern conveniences, there are times where mere technology is not enough to keep art alive. To all you kids out there going to record stores and buying vinyl I say thank you; you’ve chosen wisely.
