Why Vinyl Matters

Posted by Mark on May 7, 2012
Posted in: music, personal, photography. Tagged: , , . 8 comments

I used to own over 4000 albums until one fateful day my parents sold them  at their garage sale.  I was warned about doing something with them as I lived away from home and the records were at my parents house.  Of course I did nothing until they were sold for a $100.  That memory ranks 3rd in my all time bad list behind my father’s death and my first wife leaving me on Valentines Day.

I still do not own any vinyl to this day as it is an addiction for me that I can’t have in the house.  I refuse to buy a new turntable because I know that I will buy records to play on it.  So in the days of  MP3s and streaming audio why does vinyl still matter to me?

 

Vinyl matters because it represents a time when recorded music was accorded a sense of respect.  People bought a record to hold in their hand and look at the artwork , place carefully on the platter and actually change to listen to the other side. People actually sat and listened to an album rather than multi-task with the computer playing streaming audio.  The inner sleeve was often covered with lyrics , photos and credits in a format that was big enough to read unlike the CD or cassette.  Records actually sold in numbers to support musicians financially and record stores still could make a profit.

In today’s world all the big chain music shops are gone and only a few local independent shops still exist .  A lot of those surviving shops make most of their money off vinyl.  Now that online music has decimated CD sales ,  young people are getting into buying vinyl as a kind of retro hipster thing.  I went to Record Store Day in April and almost all the people buying records were under  30. Vinyl will always be cool because it has that tactile thing that CDs never really had.  It only takes someone to pick up a record and look at the large cover art to get how records were about the feel and personality.  MP3s are great in that they are convenient and take up room but they have zero sensual appeal.

Vinyl even sounds better on a good stereo. It has warmth and depth that a good CD often lacks. Lets not even talk about the quality of MP3s. It took a long time for CDs to improve as the first releases of many big artists were sub par compared to the vinyl version.

I may never own vinyl again but I will always love records for the permanence they represent.

Be Well Mark

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1205326947 Stephen Leigh

    I feel your pain Mark ,my first ever single was Depeche Mode ,just cant get enough .I was cool walking into my local record shop sporting my newly spiked blue hair ( my toes are curling writing this ).I rushed home and played that single to death .Many single many albums followed .
    I still had them until my move to Canada ,when a well meaning relative misunderstood me ,and thought by selling them we could have the money for our new adventure in Canada !!!!!!!!.Gutted ,devastated ,the list goes on .Years of collecting vanished on a cold wet Sunday afternoon car boot sale !.I still miss my vinyl………….
    Ipod it is then !

    • Mfaviell

      Ipods do rule but Vinyl rules a little harder  :)

  • http://www.devacoaching.com Sandi Amorim

    I still have my vinyl – a box of maybe 250 records in my parents’ basement. My dad’s threatened the same thing for years, but they’re still there! (I check every time I go home for a visit!) 

    And I still remember my first LP, a K-Tel special that I bought for the single Only 16 by Dr. Hook :)  

    • Mfaviell

      We should take a photo of all your vinyl spread on the floor in the basement in Winnipeg lol

    • http://twitter.com/covivant Dave Kell

      And now you can never bring them home, because of Mark’s addiction.  So sad…

  • http://JuliusReque.com Rikki

    When I was very young I had a 45 player in my room, it was the family’s but I guess my brothers and I took it as one of the toys. I grew up listening to Voltes V, Mazinger Z and soundtracks from many cartoons and popular tv shows (even Mary Poppins). Even tho these are kids songs (I’ll admit I also played The Carpenters there), I understand the “warmth” that you mentioned with the quality of sound you get when you play a record. It represents a special time in my life too, not just back when music albums were enjoyable by touch (and not playable BY one, get it?) but also of simpler times as a young boy learning to appreciate different types of music.

  • http://twitter.com/covivant Dave Kell

    Hi Mark.  I really appreciate your story here.  I see a lot of references to vinyl’s significant resurgence in the current music industry.  I can understand the benefits for the artists, truly I can.  And I do miss the physical package of an LP as well… that intricate package of bizarre artwork, artist credits, lyrics (if we were lucky)… so far I don’t see an adequate replacement in the digital world.  I have bought a few download albums with pretty good digital booklets (such as Joe Bonamassa’s Black Rock), which I thought might start to turn the tide.  It’s not physical, but brings most of my key objectives back into focus.

    I’ll be frank, though, that I personally am looking forward to sitting down with someone’s vinyl collection anew, and listening for this great warm sound (I only this week talked to someone who has started buying vinyl anew).  I’ve heard of it, but that’s not how I remember vinyl.  Scratchy and full of little white noise background.

    I remember the first time I ever heard a CD player, at the home of a university friend (mid-80s).  My world changed forever, when for the first time (of hundreds of listens), I heard something brand new on both Dark Side of the Moon and Crime of the Century: silence.  Gorgeous, golden silence in those spots between notes, and between tracks… wow!

    So I’m pretty sure I’ll never go back to vinyl either, but for a very different reason than you.  But wow… thanks for the memories!

    Dave

  • Les Potapczyk

    As a committed vinylphile I too share your pain Mark, but my mother only got rid of my comic book collection not the vinyl thank goodness!  I’m still accumulating and all the points you mention as to why I would are certainly applicable to me.  Each time I search record stores, Goodwill shops and garage sales there is a triumphant moment to be had finding an album that is new to me or one that I own already but in better condition than mine!  Vinyl also helps you stay in shape because you have to stand up, walk to the turntable every 25 minutes or so to flip the record to the other side.  GREAT excercise!