A pair of Wired stories recently reported evidence of a significant uptick in the sale of vinyl records, showing that while CD sales have declined 11.7 percent this past year, vinyl sales have increased 36.6 percent. This recent resurgence of vinyl is beautifully ironic. This is the digital age! Music is cheap, convenient and portable. Innovations in technology have propelled us to places no one could have dreamed of a couple of decades ago. 8-Track cartridges came and went. Cassette tapes came and went. We’ll soon be able to say the same thing about CDs. Yet here we are, watching the sale of vinyl records climb like it’s 1976.
There are those who may see this as a step backwards for physical media, but in reality that couldn’t be further from the truth. For the past few years the recording industry has been increasingly commoditized, and listeners have consistently chosen quantity and convenience over quality. The MP3 is the poster child for this idea. You can download, copy and share it almost instantly and carry it anywhere, but it sounds terrible. The result is a glut of recorded music on the Internet and a largely devalued product. Listeners were ok with this for a while, but it seems the masses (or at least an increasingly large subset of the masses) have had enough.
Vinyl could be the perfect answer to listeners’ digital fatigue, and could provide the flailing music industry with something it desperately needs - value. Digital files are nearly worthless as a product. You can’t see them or touch them. They are infinitely reproduce-able and instantly available. If over abundance commoditized a physical product, inite-ness devalues a virtual product completely. Vinyl on the other hand can’t be easily reproduced, and is a much more sensory medium. The sound quality is better, there is more room for artwork. You can see it, hold it, smell it, taste it. It has the ability to foster a much deeper connection between the listener and the music. How many times have you flipped through dozens of songs on your iPod without really listening? You have to work for vinyl - finding the right album, placing it on the turntable, finding the groove, flipping it over when the first side finishes. You can’t just let it play forever in the background. Vinyl has the potential to return some of the appreciation for music as art that this industry has lost.
CDs are not the answer. Digital files have made CDs redundant and obsolete. Why do we need a physical version of a digital file? That makes no sense. We have iPods for that, which better represent the advantages of digital anyway - convenience and portability. MP3 players don’t scratch or skip and you can carry your entire library in your pocket. CDs were always flawed, and now they are finally on their way out.
Of course, we’re talking about vinyl replacing CDs not digital music in general. We have only just begun to realize the potential of digital technology, but digital is still more effective when a physical medium is also available. Labels like Matador Records have recognized this and have begun including coupons in record packaging that can be used to download digital versions of the album’s songs. According to Matador the coupons have been a big hit. Programs like this are a great way of providing fans with the best of both worlds.
I’m not old enough to have any real nostalgia about vinyl records, but the benefits a true resurgence could bring to our struggling industry is exciting. Vinyl provides the artists and labels with a real product to sell again, yes - and that’s great. What excites me, though, is that vinyl has the potential to get listeners to connect to recorded music as an art form again, and that is something we can all get behind.
SOURCE:
http://www.creativedeconstruction.com
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