Why Vinyl Can't Survive

haven't had time to read all this cos of work, but the idea that enjoying vinyl automatically = rose-tinted rockism is a load of old guff really.

God yeah I hate the pluralisation of vinyl to vinyls.

But CDs are records too, in that they're recordings...

I've been ripping a lot of my CDs lately for convenience, one thing I have noticed while doing this is that this whole "CD rot only from a few p-pressing plants in the late 80s" is bullshit, I've got several CDs from the late 90s with it.

not sure where that stutter came from

i just really want people to stop calling records vinyls. that's my only complaint. nobody ever said this until the internet

this is a European thing, you hear it a lot from the mouths of non-native English speakers.

xps

But CDs are records too, in that they're recordings...

Yeah, in Camden Record & Tape Exchange someone would always point out that tapes were records too...

http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_250/MI0001/815/MI0001815647.jpg?partner=allrovi.com

Was the Record & Tape Exchange ever actually called that? When I lived in London (early 90s) it was only ever the Music & Video Exchange.

It was def called the Record and Tape Exchange before it became M&V, yes.

Lots of x-posts

I love vinyl and have been buying it over half my life (I'm 32), and it's been my go-to format for a long time. It used to be far, far cheaper to buy old records on vinyl, and I'd say 75% of my collection was purchased for $5 or less. I like the way it looks and sounds. People fetishize pops and crackles, but really, those shouldn't necessarily be there. If you buy vinyl that's been taken care of, and you yourself take care of it, it's a pretty damn clean presentation. Also, you guys are talking about the degradation of vinyl like it's rubbing metal on a wax candle or something. It takes a fuckload of plays to make an even barely noticeable dulling of the sound of an LP--unless, that is, your setup is poor (with a poorly balanced tonearm, bad needle, bad tracking weight, etc.). Which brings me to another point: vinyl requires a bit of care, knowledge, and patience in its setup and playback. So what? Learn how to balance your tonearm; learn how to align your cartridge. It's not hard, and it feels good to know about. Also, Sick, you talk about how vinyl is unwieldy and gets so easily scratched and smudged. Just don't put your fingers all over the grooves and don't drop your records! Don't leave them sitting around naked! The notion that "oh it's such a PAIN to have to get up and walk five steps to flip a record every 20 minutes!" is funny to me, too. Although there have been plenty of nights where I've fallen asleep on the couch and woken up a few hours later to an LP spinning it its runout groove, so that's not entirely a bad point. But really?

Yeah, before Videos became a sell-through item (around 1987).

Ah, Camden MVE RIP.

Anyway, don't have a problem with enjoyment of vinyl records, just the placing of vinyl records on a moral and/or spiritual level above any other form of sound reproduction because a lot of middle-aged white men are worried about death.

"records are bizarre. limited bandwidth, will sound drastically different depending on your equipment. they age badly, get dirty, they're bloody massive, heavy, get fucked up easily but they make me smile."

http://cl.jroo.me/z3/R/x/i/e/a.baa-cute-dirty-child.jpg

Haha, agreed, But taking a moral/spiritual stance *against* vinyl just because the thought of middle-aged white men confronting mortality crinks you up is just as bizarre to me.

(That was to Marcello...)

"People fetishize pops and crackles, but really, those shouldn't necessarily be there. If you buy vinyl that's been taken care of, and you yourself take care of it, it's a pretty damn clean presentation. Also, you guys are talking about the degradation of vinyl like it's rubbing metal on a wax candle or something. It takes a fuckload of plays to make an even barely noticeable dulling of the sound of an LP"

huh, interesting. you almost sound like an...adult!

99% of middle-age white men haven't listened to vinyl in decades. just throwing that out there.

It's the 1% who hog the media that I'm concerned about.

It's a cold world, man. Let sad old dudes be sentimental about *something*.

99% of middle-age white men haven't listened to vinyl in decades. just throwing that out there.

― scott seward, Thursday, February 7, 2013 10:30 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is blindingly true.

I own lots of both, but as an object, records are hands down more attractive. There is something pathetic about an old CD with its scuffed, cracked case and yellowed inserts. (CD box sets, however, were in general very nicely done in their hey-day and are attractive objects).

What I personally fail to understand is why people want to buy LPs of recordings made digitally in modern studios. I get the object factor, but it to me it seems kind of silly to take a digital recording and then put it on an analog format.

What I personally fail to understand is why people want to buy LPs of recordings made digitally in modern studios. I get the object factor, but it to me it seems kind of silly to take a digital recording and then put it on an analog format.

― Johnny Hotcox, Thursday, February 7, 2013 10:42 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm inclined to agree, but man, a good vinyl mastering of a digital recording can be a beautiful thing. I mean, listen to a lot of the stuff guys like Rashad Becker from Dubplates & Mastering are doing; flat-out gorgeous and RICH sounding.

i love a good cd, man. my kompakt CDs are some of my most treasured possessions. when CDs are done well - especially with electronic or electro-acoustic or well-made/produced classical - they are awesome things to hear.

Pro tip: most of the snap/crackle/pop you hear on used records is dirt & grime. Unless you're buying cheap scratched vinyls from the charity shoppe, a little cleaning solution and a soft cloth will make a noticeable improvement.

I've always been a 'native format' guy and prefer to listen to music on the media it was originally released on (pre-'87 vinyl, 80s rap/metal on tape, 90s CD, 00s on mp3), but, as a nostalgic middle-aged white guy, it thrills me to no end to see bins of new, shrink-wrapped LPs in the record store again.

Thread title is Thomas Friedman editorial in Tape Op

"I've a/b'd stuff like PIL Metal Box and it's not a small difference, if you haven't heard that on vinyl you haven't heard it"

over the last couple of years i have had the pleasure of hearing some of the best music from 70's jamaica on 12 inch and 7 inch and if someone has only heard cd reissues or trojan cd boxes or whatever, wow, they have no idea what they are missing. but they really have no idea, so they aren't missing anything. but, man, they will make you weep. a good Rockers 12 inch or an Orchid 7-inch oh god for real they are so huge and deep. and CDs just don't get that. for whatever reasons.

i just can't afford new vinyl. wish i could. tons of reissues i would buy. i'm a volume guy though. would rather buy 10 or 15 old records for the price of 2 new vinyl releases.

Thought Jamaica had notoriously bad pressings

The comment about PIL recordings on vinyl is completely true. When my mate was demo-ing phono pre-amps we went to a high-end store. On a $3k turntable with a $2k pre-amp feeding into $30k speakers in an acoustically treated room at ungodly volume, PIL's "Flowers Of Romance" on vinyl sounded completely new to me, despite having owned it on CD for years. I really GOT what Lydon was after with the recording.

But, really, I'll never hear it like that again. So I'm content with my CD. I kinda know what I'm missing and I just don't care.

The CD reissue era's worst offense was the occasional re-mixing and the even more drastic re-recording of original material (one of the most flagrant examples was ZZ Top). That problem alone should make you want to search out the original issue when cost and availability are not huge factors (alas, they often are).

i just really want people to stop calling records vinyls. that's my only complaint. nobody ever said this until the internet.

false. in Germany record collectors always called them "vinyls" and the "v" is pronounced more like a "w." And they would ask you at the merch table: "Do you have any vinyls?" and you'd say "no this is CD only" and then if you were lucky you'd get a "you must force the label to release it on vinyl!"

jamaica had AMAZING pressings. i'm astounded on a weekly basis. its a common misperception.

tons of americans say vinyls now. it's a thing.

in Germany record collectors always called them "vinyls" and the "v" is pronounced more like a "w." And they would ask you at the merch table: "Do you have any vinyls?" and you'd say "no this is CD only" and then if you were lucky you'd get a "you must force the label to release it on vinyl!"

^^^ read this in the voice of Grandpa Simpson, it's hilarious

Also scott's right, baby boom dudes love cds! They are always surprised when I say I have records still, they upgraded in the 80s and never looked back

after years of reflecting and bullshit posturing I've decided that I just like formats including digital ones. I like to think about format when I'm engaging with music; physical formats lend themselves to a more concrete experience of this. I'm in a tape phase right now because there's some really good metal bands that prefer tapes and also there is a toddler in this house who thinks cassettes are just the coolest things to pick up and carry around. (I like to hand him stuff that will literally no longer exist in any form if he breaks it because then I am delegate a sort of supreme power to a guy who hasn't got language yet.) Doubtless there's a sense-memory nostalgia to it, too. If I were an audiophile I suspect I'd be an analog believer but let's be honest I've been listening to loud music for years, my ears aren't exactly Robert Parker's nose

^^^ read this in the voice of Grandpa Simpson, it's hilarious

a sad otm btw, curse you Phil D., I'll steal the onion from your belt

The recording did such a good job of running down vinyl to get everyone to buy cds a lot of myths still persist

I know of a local indie record store that only sells new and used vinyl now because their cds weren't selling at all. People are willing to spend crazy amounts on old vinyl.

xp my conspiracy theory is that industry purposely made late-80s vinyl sound shitty so the LP vs CD comparison would be a no-brainer.
I held out for so long at the time until I heard the CD of Skylarking, which sounded amazing compared to my record, esp since they squeezed it all onto a single LP.

Are there any 'only new vinyl' stores yet in hipsterville? that would be a total trip

i used to listen to 90% of my music on a crappy little radio i got for christmas one year. before that people had crystal radios. and a lot of people just use their phone speakers to listen to music. this is probably part of the reason why i'll never understand being an audiophile, or a record "collector" for that reason. there's definitely an argument to be made that if you accept the crackles and pops and digital degradation, then you'll be a much happier music fan than if you worry obsessively about 50Hz hums or low bitrate encoding. that said, i'm not stopping any lower than 256kbps cos that shit sounds HORRIBLE!

xp my conspiracy theory is that industry purposely made late-80s vinyl sound shitty so the LP vs CD comparison would be a no-brainer.
I held out for so long at the time until I heard the CD of Skylarking, which sounded amazing compared to my record, esp since they squeezed it all onto a single LP.

Late 80s vinyl was made very cheaply because it was so vastly mass produced, so I've been told.

I dunno, re: industry crappy 80s vinyl conspiracy...there were complaints about shitty vinyl starting in the late 70s. I seem to recall a '78 or '79 article in RS about how rampant the problem was, and how it was becoming standard practice to tape a record on first listen, given how quickly the vinyl would wear out.

But now that the music industry got everyone to replace their vinyl with CDs, they can convince everyone to replace those CDs with vinyl reissues!

in short: don't listen to anyone EVER.

We have a califone player which flatly refuses to play any vinyl cut after 81 or 82. Just skates its way right across the side. SOMETHING must have changed around then.

If I were an audiophile I suspect I'd be an analog believer but let's be honest I've been listening to loud music for years, my ears aren't exactly Robert Parker's nose

This, above all. I'm pretty sure it's been years since my ears would have been capable of perceiving the benefit of lossless over 320kbps mp3, let alone vinyl over digital.

Which is to say, I AM an audiophile, but only within my physical hearing capabilities which are not great.

There are so many weird arguments your article sick mouthy. 12" records are hard to hold!?

I'm only a year older than you so it's strange to me that you say that CDs were the format through which you experienced music. You didn't listen to any records when you were a kid? CDs weren't even available until you were 5 and you say you didn't get a player until you were 14. You didn't listen to any music before then!?

You say that records have been expensive for 20 years but that's really not true and you're old enough to have been buying lots of cheap used vinyl in the '90s like a lot of us did. Nobody really wanted records back then and they were dirt cheap most of the time.

You try to expand the argument into an album vs. single thing which makes no sense at all since vinyl singles have always been available. It's not a rock thing either. One of the main factors keeping vinyl alive over the past couple of decades was electronic music 12" singles!

If you "literally can’t buy any new vinyl in the city where I live" then you're hardly being oppressed by this vinyl revival are you? And I don't get the point of that complaint at all. What do you care if you're not interested in vinyl anyway? And how is the lack of a good record store in your town a fault of the format?

Finally, you seem opposed to the idea of musicians being able to make a living. The album vs. singles argument is primarily about the economics of making records. Yes the industry wants to push albums on you because that's the only way that artists can really make a living. But you don't sound like you think that's a good thing when you say that CDs "made incalculable profits for a greedy industry in the 90s" as though it's a bad thing.

Late 80s vinyl was made very cheaply because it was so vastly mass produced, so I've been told.

I don't think that's true across the board but there were some particularly crummy pressing techniques in the '70s like Dynagroove and Dynaflex. If you buy a popular '70s Dynaflex album that somebody played a million times with a stack of quarters taped to the top of their cartridge it's probably going to sound like shit.

What I personally fail to understand is why people want to buy LPs of recordings made digitally in modern studios

but it has to be mastered differently for vinyl...less bass, maybe (esp. for a full length), but it will also likely be more dynamic b/c it can't be brick-wall limited.

This, above all. I'm pretty sure it's been years since my ears would have been capable of perceiving the benefit of lossless over 320kbps mp3, let alone vinyl over digital.

― there were chinchillas, these weird little rat animals, in cages (Jon Lewis), Thursday, February 7, 2013 10:42 AM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I actually think a lot of the things vinyl brings are pretty easy to hear, probably more pronounced than comparing digital formats

The whole idea that you have to be an ”audiophile” to notice is annoying, it's like saying you have to be a ”tvphile” to spot an hdtv