But, if you believe the statistics, vinyl sales nationwide have increased by 33 percent from 2008 to 2009, and they seem to continue to rise. And the big news? Most buyers are teenagers and young adults!
Is it possible that an object of the past, something everyone thought was completely obsolete since the arrival of the CD, is now saving an industry?
The vintage is back, the young generation is buying digital music and has rapidly made the CD useless, but they also like the vinyl of their grandparents?
It is so weird but in a way understandable as people like to own and touch an object, they are falling in love all over again with the aesthetic of the record, since, with the CD format, the artwork cover was reduced to this frustrating mini size, and with the mp3 it was completely gone.
And there is the sound that people describe as warmer, fuller, surface noise, humming needle along the grooves,… ha yeah, I remember about the cracks!
Actually, I have read that the newly issued vinyl is mastered from some digitized copy of the master, and it is just a digitized recording on an analog medium, so just an illusion.
For my part, I don’t buy vinyl, I just look at records like things from the past, probably because I was around when they were the only thing available. Vinyl is just old, it is more than 70 year old for god sake! Are we also going to buy bulky TV sets again? Sure the artwork is cool but that’s about the only attraction for me.
May be it is just a trend which will eventually go away, but, for now, as long as the vinyl sales allow little record shops to flourish in my neighborhood, I’m all for the renaissance of the record.