The Guardian is reporting about the unexpected results of a new research by ICM, studying the buying habits of music fans: First of all, more people bought a CD last year (57%) than an MP3 download (39%), which goes against the general trend that has been observed these past years! Could there be a new life for the CD? Secondly, 13% of 25-34 year olds and 10% of 18-24 year olds purchased music on cassette in the last month. I have noticed this new trend actually, at concerts, bands are offering cassettes at the merchandize table, a very weird thing to see when you are my age. When the CD inundated the market, cassettes became so obsolete that we couldn’t wait to get rid of them! And they are back?
But there was another surprise among these findings: 15% of people who do buy music on CD, vinyl or cassette tape, never plan on playing them! And this largely concerned the young people, among the 18-24 years old, 26% bought music without having the intention to play it… so all these vinyl purchases are just to decorate their bedroom shelves? I don’t buy vinyl, I am old enough to consider these relics of the past as archaic and scratchy! I am sorry but I have no nostalgia for turntables and if I own a few vinyl (I got them for free), it would never cross my mind to buy a vinyl of an album and never play it,… such a waste. It reminds me people who buy books to fill up their library whereas they will never open any of these books. Is it some kind of hipsters’ apotheosis? I bet they buy these album frames at Urban Outfitters and decorate their walls with Neutral Milk Hotel or Wilco. I know now why Amoeba sells so many of these vinyl records.
It is interesting to think that we have reached a point where objects in music have totally disappeared, records and CDs have been replaced by mp3s and everything digital…but we have now reached another point where people want to return to the object and buy it either for collection or decoration purposes or sentimental attachment, or… you name it; the mp3 stole something that people want to regain control of.
