Vinyl records and albums, which began to be replaced by CDs in the mid-1980s, have rebounded in recent years as enthusiasts young and old have turned sentimental for the old pops, cracks and warm sounds emitting from grooves on a record.
From college dorm rooms to high school sleepovers, an all-but-extinct music medium has been showing up lately. And we don't mean CDs. Vinyl records, especially the full-length LPs that helped define the golden era of rock in the 1960s and '70s, are suddenly cool again. Some of the new fans are baby boomers nostalgic for their youth. But to the surprise and delight of music executives, increasing numbers of the iPod generation are also purchasing turntables (or dusting off Dad's), buying long-playing vinyl records and giving them a spin.
Like the comeback of Puma sneakers or vintage tied-dyed tee shirts, vinyl's resurgence has benefited from its retro-rock aura. Many young listeners discovered LPs after they rifled through their parents' collections looking for oldies and found that they liked the warmer sound quality of records, the more elaborate album covers and liner notes that come with them, and the experience of putting one on and sharing it with friends, as opposed to plugging in some ear-phones and listening alone. "Poor sound on an iPod has had an impact on a lot of people going back to vinyl," says David Johnson, a 15-year-old high school sophomore from St. Louis, Mo., who owns more than 1,000 records.
The music industry, hoping to find another revenue source that doesn't easily lend itself to illegal downloads, has happily jumped on the bandwagon. Contemporary artists have begun issuing their new releases on vinyl in addition to the CD and MP3 formats. As an extra lure, many labels are including coupons for free audio downloads with their vinyl albums so that Generation Y music fans can get the best of both worlds: high-quality sound at home and iPod portability for the road. Also, vinyl's different shapes (hearts, triangles) and eye-catching designs (bright colors, sparkles) are created to appeal to a younger audience. While new records sell for about $14, used LPs go for as little as a penny — perfect for a teenager's budget — or as much as $2,400 for a collectible, autographed copy of Beck's Steve Threw Up.
Vinyl records are just a “small scratch” on the surface when it comes to total album sales — only about 0.2%, compared to 10% for digital downloads and 89.7% for CDs. Still, over 1,500,000 vinyl albums were sold in 2008. Mike Dreese, CEO of Newbury Comics, a New England chain of independent music retailers that sells LPs and CDs, says his vinyl sales were up 37% last year. "We can't keep up with the demand."
Big players are starting to take notice too. In October of last year, Amazon.com introduced a vinyl-only store and increased its selection to 150,000 titles across 20 genres. Its biggest sellers? Classic rock albums. "I'm not saying vinyl will become a mainstream format, just like gourmet eating is not going to take over from McDonald's," says Michael Fremer, senior contributing editor at Stereophile. "But there is a growing group of people who are going back to a high-resolution format." Here are some of the reasons they're doing it and why you might want to consider it:
Sound quality LPs generally exhibit a warmer, more nuanced sound than CDs and digital downloads. MP3 files tend to produce tinnier notes, especially if compressed into a lower-resolution format that pares down the sonic information. "Most things sound better on vinyl, even with the crackles and pops and hisses," says Johnson, the young Missouri record collector.
Album extras: large album covers with imaginative graphics, pullout photos (some even have full-size posters tucked in the sleeve) and liner notes are a big draw for young fans. "Alternative rock used to have 16-page booklets and album sleeves, but with iTunes there isn't anything collectible to show I own a piece of this artist," says Dreese of Newbury Comics. In a nod to modern technology, albums known as picture discs come with an image of the band or artist printed on the vinyl. "People who are used to CDs see the artwork and the colored vinyl, and they think it's really cool," says Jordan Yates, 15, a Nashville-based vinyl enthusiast. Some LP releases even come with bonus tracks not on the CD version.
Crowding around a record player to listen to a new album with friends, discussing the foldout photos, even getting up to flip over a record makes vinyl a more socially interactive way to enjoy music. "As far as a communal experience, like with family and friends, it feels better to listen to vinyl... it's definitely more social," says Jordan Yates.
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Flipping through old vinyl albums at a used-record shop, I did what anyone does when a fellow human bares his soul: I pretended to listen. "They said CDs would sound better," he persisted. "They lied!" He rapped a vintage Ramsey Lewis album on the edge of the bin, like a gavel, releasing that distinct scent of dust and decomposing cardboard.
"I got rid of my record player. I let my records go. And they never even bothered to bring back half of my old albums. Not even half. It was like they hooked us, and then they gutted us."
It was a spontaneous outburst, but the gist of it I've been hearing for years among frequenters of the vinyl bins: despite the advantages of compact disks (CDs) over vinyl — you'll never hear a CD pop or click, and you can access any track instantly — the supposed perfection of the format was overstated. Of course, the record companies were just as over-the-top about LPs when they first came out. Here's a quote from my vinyl copy of Tony [Bennett]'s Greatest Hits, Volume III: "You can purchase this record with no fear of its becoming obsolete in the future." Pioneer audiophiles undoubtedly felt that way about Edison's cylinder phonograph of the late 1800s and the 78-rpm shellac disks of the early 20th century. And even as the "never obsolete" vinyl promise was being made in the 1960s, guys in white lab coats were dreaming up the next phase: eight-track tape cartridges and then cassette tapes.
Now record companies are making money from vinyl again: vinyl-record sales soared 89 percent in 2008, while CDs, falling prey to Internet downloads, continued to trudge down the road to extinction. Music giant EMI has rereleased some 65 classic albums on vinyl, including acts ranging from Frank Sinatra to the Beastie Boys. U2's album: No Line on the Horizon, Bruce Springsteen's: Working on a Dream, and Harry Connick Jr.'s: Your Songs have all done brisk vinyl business.
The Sound of Silence
It wasn't the sound that sold us on CDs — it was the absence of it. Your first CD experience was probably a lot like mine. It's the silence. A record warns you something's going to happen with all the noise it makes. But this is a compact disk. When it's quiet, it's damn quiet. Even after CDs nudged vinyl out the record-store door in the late 1980s, enthusiasts stuck to their position that vinyl's sound reproduction was ultimately more satisfying than digital's. “Warmer” is the word used most frequently. Vinyl has the warm, full sound of the music. The cracks and the little imperfections that pop up seem to enhance the music. It's a way of experiencing music rather than just consuming it.
It's the unique imperfections of each vinyl record that make it irreplaceable. After enough plays, a record becomes a fingerprint of your listening experience. Just about everyone who owned the Beatles' White Album wore the thing down to a nub. Your copy, like mine, is a crackling mess through "Cry Baby Cry"—but then it becomes a mint-condition collector's item the moment that unlistenable jumble of sounds "Number 9" fades in.
Even the “non-listening” rituals of record ownership are burned into the memories of everyone who ever had a collection. Need proof?
Head down to a music store and buy a record — most larger shops now have at least a small vinyl section. The rest will come naturally: bring the record home (on the way, I guarantee, you'll admire the cover artwork). Now slip your thumbnail into the cellophane sheath, right at the album's business end, and slide it along. Feel that flutter in your stomach as the album opens? You're remembering what it's like to access your music with a single, graceful stroke —instead of peeling, stabbing, cutting, and finally biting your way into a CD plastic case! You know exactly what I mean! Now slide out the inner sleeve. There it is: the proud, black thing of beauty, its label winking at you through the sleeve's center hole. As you extract the disk from the sleeve, you'll find you haven't forgotten how to hold it safely: your thumb at the ridge, the label resting on your fingers. If you're lucky enough to still have your turntable, you'll deftly center the record on the spindle. Best of all, the disk won't hop into a drawer and disappear into a box, like a CD. It will stay right there in plain view, singing to you at a steady 33⅓ revolutions per minute. Of course, you remember.
Vinyl will never be mainstream again. When a former vinyl listener reconnects, he or she says, “I remember that sound. That's what I'm missing!” And a new generation is discovering that vinyl sounds better and represents tunes sequenced as the artist wishes, rather than as a series of random events. I doubt kids will look back in 50 years and say, “I remember when I downloaded that!”
The End
Those of us who fell for the “Great Lie” will never fully recover. My distraught friend from the used-record store is right: we'll spend the rest of our days trying to re-create our old collections like ancient mariners roaming the earth, our MP3 players slung about our necks like albatrosses.
But there will be the inevitable reunions with long-lost LP friends, the rush of anticipation when the needle hits that groove, and the exquisite moment when the music plays, warm and full, punctuated with the pops and crackles of passing time.
