Why Vinyl Can't Survive

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

yes the industry wants to push albums on you because that's the only way that artists can really make a living.

this is not really true fwiw

Yeah, pretty sure the industry was never particularly concerned with whether or not artists made a living.

but it has to be mastered differently for vinyl.

^^^totally otm. vinyl mastering is a completely different process

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.

true but these techniques were redeemed by having awesome names

Love the vinyl, and wouldn't mind ditching my CDs, since I'm fine with the rips. But I'm not convinced that the "warmer" sound many people hear in vinyl doesn't have something to do with surface dust crackling like a cozy fireplace.

I chase down and exterminate surface noise, it is my enemy, war will never cease

We're gonna find the folks who did this n' we're gonna smoke 'em outta their holes

But seriously do you guys like leave your records out of the sleeve or scratch them with screwdrivers or make a pb&j them handle them with messy fingers or something?

this is not really true fwiw

do tell

diminishing returns from record sales, other revenue streams have become more important (esp licensing), labels have never cared about musicians making a living, album format was also the result of technical and physical manufacturing constraints, the list is pretty long

So where are the big pop artists who only release singles? Why do these supposedly singles oriented artists all make full length albums? It's still the most economically sound way to produce music and pretty much every area of the industry from songwriters and recording studios to marketing departments benefit from focusing on full length albums rather than singles.

hey I'm not saying mouthy's argument is correct, just that musicians in general aren't making money, much less a living, off of album sales these days.

to marketing departments

^i think this is the key

The industry essentially killed the single in the late 90s due to the higher profit margins on albums. Ironically, this was a large part of what led to the rise of file-sharing: if you wanted the new Backstreet Boys single, your options were to buy the $18 CD or, since you only wanted the one song, download it via file-sharing.

In 2012 there were 316 million albums sold in the U.S. and. 1.3 billion digital tracks. So the album side of the industry is still worth about 3 times what singles make. And as album sales continue to fall there's no way to make that money up in singles sales.

I can't help but feel that people who dismiss albums and focus on singles are really just hurting the artists they like. It's fun to turn it into some kind of rockist vs. popist culture war, but the economic reality is that all of the "filler" that the evil corporations forced you to buy is what helped subsidize the awesome singles.

The industry essentially killed the single in the late 90s due to the higher profit margins on albums. Ironically, this was a large part of what led to the rise of file-sharing: if you wanted the new Backstreet Boys single, your options were to buy the $18 CD or, since you only wanted the one song, download it via file-sharing.

I think this is somewhat of a canard. The biggest thing that led to the rise of file-sharing was "yay, free stuff." Even after itunes forced labels to sell singles people still downloaded stuff for free rather than paying a dollar.

If your two options are $18 for a CD with a bunch of songs you don't want and $2 for a single with the song(s) you do want, you're likely to pick the latter. But the latter wasn't an option, so file sharing took its place. In the ensuing tumult, and prior to iTunes, labels did everything they could to NOT get in front of the situation (including, but not limited to, paid services where you didn't own the song and/or could only play it on proprietary hardware; and the rootkit debacle). Labels had to be dragged kicking and screaming into iTunes, and only did so because of how spectacularly and comprehensively they'd fucked up every other possible solution.

I never bought the "yay, free stuff" argument; if you don't want something, it being free doesn't make you suddenly want it.

If your two options are $18 for a CD with a bunch of songs you don't want and $2 for a single with the song(s) you do want, you're likely to pick the latter. But the latter wasn't an option, so file sharing took its place. In the ensuing tumult, and prior to iTunes, labels did everything they could to NOT get in front of the situation (including, but not limited to, paid services where you didn't own the song and/or could only play it on proprietary hardware; and the rootkit debacle). Labels had to be dragged kicking and screaming into iTunes, and only did so because of how spectacularly and comprehensively they'd fucked up every other possible solution.

I never bought the "yay, free stuff" argument; if you don't want something, it being free doesn't make you suddenly want it.

Labels had to be dragged kicking and screaming into digital single sales because album sales are far more economically viable! Look at what happened to the industry after iTunes.

I didn't say that people downloaded free stuff just for the sake of free stuff. Of course it's music that they want. But illegal downloading didn't go away when iTunes came on the scene. If people want something and their options are $18 plus filler, $2 for a single, or $0 for a free download, they're going to choose the consequence-free $0 option.

If your two options are $18 for a CD with a bunch of songs you don't want and $2 for a single with the song(s) you do want, you're likely to pick the latter. But the latter wasn't an option, so file sharing took its place.

lol no. people share albums you know. like, primarily. people don't say "could you post that link with just the single?" any number of other variables one could bring up but really trust me here. filesharing did not become a thing because of consumer frustration with the decline of the single.

i sell classical records in 2013! that's all i know. life is good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQpq4T-cGjM

US and UK market and cultures very different, please remember. I'm speaking from my experience in the UK.

lol no. people share albums you know. like, primarily. people don't say "could you post that link with just the single?"

That's definitely the case now, and has been since at least 2001, absolutely. I was referring to the beginnings of file sharing (ca. 1997-99).

i hated when they got rid of singles in stores. and i totally blame the big record companies and they totally lost out on tons of money by not selling them. going into a record store and not being able to buy a top 40 single...kinda half the reason why most record stores even existed!

I used to go to a drug store near my house that had cutout 45s. "Back Off Boogaloo" for 50 cents!

also, plenty of great-sounding vinyl in the 80's. and dynaflex pressings can sound nice. just listened to a stellar ziggy stardust the other day. but it depends. not all pressings are created equal. in the 70's the oil shortages had a direct effect on records. smaller labels had to use cheap/recycled vinyl.

i loved buying singles. bought them up until the end of the 90's. even cd singles. then i couldn't. unless i went to dance stores and found euro pressings of pop songs. you reap what you sow. you want people to buy a 20 dollar cd and not the single? welcome to napster, idiots.

My Dynaaflex Ziggy sounds amazing! I really think the importance of condition can't be overstated. Also, while I'm sure there are some easily-led out there who hear crackles and think "ohh, warmth, like fire; me likey!" I don't think that's by-and-large what people mean.

I guess if there's a problem with albums having too much filler you can complain and reminisce about the glory days of albums that were good from start to finish, or you can buy just one track and the artist and label will make 1/10th of the money. But I don't get why the people who do the former are the assholes. The singles solution doesn't seem like a sustainable option compared to making albums that people actually want to buy (ask taylor swift or adele).

One thing that frustrates the bejeezus out of me is poorly pressed current releases, especially on 180-gram or when they're explicitly touted as "audiophile"... And you've got a crackle throughout the entire thing, or audible distortion. The second LP of Kaputt by Destroyer (my copy at least) is pressed for shit. That drives me nuts. Did that happen as much in the 70s heyday? I mean, I feel like all my old stuff sounds pretty swell when it's in good shape.

So much straw manning in that blog post holy shit.

I don't even know what this vinyl discourse is, I don't hang out at urban outfitters or w/e though.

I mean, CDS and vinyl are mastered separately. So when you buy a CD Bookends or something, it's not going to sound the same as the og vinyl. (Not necc. Better! Just different!!). I can't believe I actually have bring that up.

I love cds too. It's all wonderful music.

endless vinyl-fetishists waxing lyrical about their favoured delivery method online or in print for what seems like the last decade.

Nobody does this.

idg arguments about vinyl vs. CDs re: durability. if you take care of either they will last (in general). if you scratch a CD, it's fucked. if you scratch vinyl, it skips. both will last as long as you take care of them. (altho I have had the odd CD that just doesn't wanna play anymore after 3 decades or whatever. not sure what to attribute that to)

In terms of the sound, the warmth that so many people describe vinyl as enjoying just sounds like surface noise to me most of the time, a veil through which detail often has to struggle to emerge

And this is just insane... Like, wow. Get a better turntable? Better needle? Records that aren't scratched?

my workplace right now -- 6 people looking at used records, one person looking at used CDs.

Ian: you are Ian from Academy? How did I just now put that together?

yes, clarke, are you a customer???

I was in last night just before closing with my bro-in-law... Bought some Discharge, Gorguts, and Roxy Music!