I was surprised to read this story posted today in The Guardian today on the resurging popularity of old fashioned vinyl record albums. According to the piece, in the UK at least, "Two-thirds of all singles [in Great Britain] now come out on in the 7in format, with sales topping 1m."
A few Google searches landed me here, at the Angry Ape reporting back in January that the group, Coldplay, would be releasing a a box set of 7" vinyl albums which they did in March of this year. That set is now available for purchase here at What Records in England and sells for around $100.00 American. Near as I can tell, the set is not available this side of the pond.
In the U.S., however, this piece from NPR reporter, John Sepulvado, posted in April, indicates a record revival is underway in this country as well. Sepulvado credits the development of the USB Turntable for the trend. Basically, the USB turntable is a traditional record player with a cord that plugs into a computer. From there, albums can be easily converted into digital files, thus preserving the (in the opinon of record enthusiasts) "superior" quality of the recordings. The turntables can be purchased for a mere $150 each. In this country, overall, vinyl sales are up 10% this year and climbing.
With records, there is also the tangibility factor. A record, after all, is a whole lot more tactile than a digital file on your iPod, and comes with stubstantial cover art, a whole other dimension that makes for added appeal.
Many of us that grew up in the age of the record album find it difficult, if not impossible, to part with our vinyl. I have written here of the S-Man's album collection, still moldering away in our many storage structures and I have to confess to contributing some vinyl of my own to that mix. In fact, alert readers will remember I flipped through those collections as recently as a few months ago to cull albums for a framing project which, incidentally, is now complete and hanging in our bedroom (see photo top of post).
Do those covers rock or what?
Thing is, neither one of us have a particular burning desire to pluck the vinyl from its cover and plop it on the turntable. Although? the S-Man's turntable stands, to this day, hooked up and ready to play at a moment's notice on the stereo along with his reel-to-reel tape player.
While sentimental about the olden days, I think we both agree that digital is just better. It's hard, for me at least, to miss the snap-crackle-pop of an aged album. I have vivid memories of some of my 45 records being so damaged and scarred from my dealing them out (literally) like playing cards as I would casually leaf through the stack, that I was forced to resort to weighting the needle cartridge with a penny in order that some especially deep groves didn't actually eject the needle from the record entirely (I was resourceful).
Nope, my feet are firmly in the digital age, musically speaking. But the trend is very interesting and I will probably continue to hold on to my vinyl. What's another twenty years at this point give or take?
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