The very real possibility that vinyl will outlive CD - T or F?

but that jibes with anecdotal stuff i hear from friends that are in bands that tour a lot, sell usually 2 to 1 vinyl and to younger kids too, not just older hipster dudes.

i have never heard this from friends in bands

i think it depends on the genre a little, noisier type stuff i think in general does better on vinyl.

TRUE

true

classical sells only on cd, so that's not going.

It's more than possible, it's probable.

As I've said before, Downloading will replace CDs as a sort of 'paperback' option, and LPs will revive as a Hardback format.

You remember your 90s albums, and how for the most part they were rubbish pressings in flimsy cardboard.

Check the LPs in HMV now, they're hard card gatefold in heavy vinyl.

Some are pricy, sure. Some are around the £16 mark.

(I saw the Beatles "Love" set for £49 new, I mean that they go down to around £16)

This is great and all, but I hope that this 'resurgence' doesn't merely serve to drive vinyl prices up. I'm kinda tired of seeing regular length, new releases at $20+ dollars.

<i>I'm kinda tired of seeing regular length, new releases at $20+ dollars.

-- will, Monday, November 19, 2007 9:56 PM (53 seconds ago) Bookmark </i>

i just bought comicopera by robert wyatt on vinyl new and it was either 15.99 for the CD or 19.99 for the vinyl because it's a double LP on account of the length, but was a no brainer for me for $4 more, packaging is great, the fourth (unused) side doesn't have any grooves, just an inscription of some lines from (i'm assuming) from a book...

buying vinyl + illegal download for my ipod is my preferred format now.

I hear you. I want to sing Merge's praises for letting me download GaGaGaGa Ga for free after purchasing the vinyl. Are they doing that for all their releases? And shouldn't everybody?

My sweet mother hooked me up with a USB turntable for my last birthday. I don't think I've actually purchased a CD in 3 or 4 years.

buying vinyl + illegal download for my ipod is my preferred format now.

I do this mostly & also a lot of new vinyl has either a download coupon hidden inside or a CD version.

Me too, tho I am mainly buying 7" singles, which don't seem to have the 'download also' option. Even the dreaded new Interpol album came with a CD version with artwork which was nice...

yeah that's awesome too...blonde redhead - 23 had that and also caribou, real handy...

the new bottomless pit and shellac had CDs in them

quotes from me! lolz

This is great and all, but I hope that this 'resurgence' doesn't merely serve to drive vinyl prices up. I'm kinda tired of seeing regular length, new releases at $20+ dollars.

deluxe gatefold 180g vinyl pressing of our new record: http://www.parasol.com/catalog/catalog.asp?zoomtitle=856780

hmmm fucked that up. anyway the record is $10. free MP3 download included.

bless you.

I sure hope downloading doesn't replace CDs - unless dl'd audio files sound less shitty someday.

Vinyl's great and I'm sure it'll never die, but it's a pain in the ass. (Plus, all those great comps of old music, like at acerecords.co.uk - those ain't on vinyl)

yeah i still like cds okay for some stuff like boxsets it is nice, but i need a new cd player.

box sets are basically the only CDs I'm willing to buy these days

i just got a new cd player and it does make a big difference. before i was playing stuff on my computer and things didn't sound so hot. now i want to play CDs!

i hardly ever buy CDs though. usually just comps and reissues that i can't get on vinyl. and i try to get that stuff by trading crappy promo stuff. that's the thing with me. i have no problem spending hundreds of dollars on records, but i HATE paying for CDs.

i do listen to CDs all the time. cuzza review work. which is why i feel kinda stupid that i have gone this long without a real cd player. even crappy stuff sounds better!

i have embraced the paid download wholeheartedly. i still buy quite a bit of secondhand vinyl but the days of me purchasing physical copies of most music is looking numbered more and more each day

i find vinyl incredibly frustrating as a format really

why is vinyl frustrating. i still find opening the plastic on a new cd much more frustrating.

i DO like my CDs! here are some:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2137/2048008701_b104f05109_b.jpg

here are some more:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2317/2048008645_6abc98ac7f_b.jpg

blurry. i must be shaky.

so how is that Yella solo album

i've sold or traded literally THOUSANDS of CD's, so if i still own something after ten years or more than it must be one of the greatest albums EVER. some i would never part with. i have a core couple of hundred that i would never sell. most NEW stuff i buy that isn't a reissue is gone in 6 months.

i need more shelves. i've never been able to look at everything at a glance. they always get stuck in boxes.

still love my tapes too:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2405/2039292318_75988888ba_b.jpg

frustrating because it's such a crapshoot - the amount of records i buy that have problems with distortion, dodgy pressings, mastered slow/fast.. i'm not one of those chumps that finds these things endearing.

tho a well pressed record is an absolute joy, no fooling

just buy test pressings. and white label promos.

Son of Bazerk!

I had to get rid of most of my tapes recently. sound quality seriously deteriorates with those.

my 45s get along okay with my CDs. though they are kinda segregated.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2135/2048008527_881718c54a_b.jpg

i've never listened to that KISS boxed set. is it worth anything? if it is it needs a new home.

i still buy tons of cds, a lot more than vinyl. (btw have we talked about this elsewhere? maybe the "do you still buy vinyl thread"? though this is a more specific question.)

i totally see the logic of the vinyl + illegal download approach, makes a lot of sense. i just don't really download because i'm mainly on the computer at work. i imagine i might someday do that, however.

for right now, though, while vinyl is definitely making a comeback (DC now has a decent amount of mostly-or-exclusively-vinyl shops), cds are still what is more widely available in terms of selection. plus the convenience -- since i don't really download even though i use an ipod, cds make the most practical sense for me. i do really like vinyl, though.

i certainly hope that cds don't go away soon, though. i don't imagine they'll go at the rate some people would have you believe, though. do cd sales still account for the majority of music purchases? i bet they do, though i could be wrong. once mp3s really start outselling cds, then i'll expect them to become extinct at a faster rate.

i actually like cd packaging, too. sure it's not as nice as vinyl, but there are some cd packages that are great. i love digipacks especially.

what i've really been enjoying tonight is Rufus's Uku-Bot.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2176/2048797298_198d32fa9c_b.jpg

is that the Pere Ubu 7" box set, Scott?

i don't wish death on cds at all. i was more just surprised that you could even make the argument now and it makes sense, where like 10 years ago people would have been like u crazy...but i do love vinyl the best, but yeah i'd rather listen to cds on my good sounding stereo than mp3s thru a computer any day.

Now for pics of Scott's vinyl!!

yes it is, dan! there is a woman on the island here who said she had something to do with putting that out. she lives with some guy who was in cornershop? and who works with the xecutioners? my memory is bad. she used to manage bands in seattle or something and worked for a label. it takes all kinds.

i posted pics of my new record shelves on the ikea thread on ile. four years of having my stuff in semi-storage/boxes/closets and i finally get to let it all out to breathe.

and i always have my hi roller ready and filled with records in case i get a last minute call to play a house party in zurich. my partner dj poopsalot is ready at a moment's notice as well.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2176/2048797298_198d32fa9c_b.jpg

whoops wrong picture

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2319/2048081187_bde1c0ccfd_b.jpg

now playing: gary farr

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2158/2048081251_7d8cad6e81_b.jpg

i have a question about these shelves, scott~

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2177/1564484515_e6d2ffef22.jpg?v=0

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2092/1564484353_04181c21fb.jpg?v=0

how many records do they each hold?

my old ikea ones--which are not made anymore--are busted and held up by two useless old speakers.

i think the big ones hold about 2500 records? something like that. each box holds like a hundred records.

nice!

well take a look at the warner bros site:

http://becausesoundmatters.com/

40 dollar versions of dollar records for sale! yay! hey, they made people throw away their records so they could buy the cd and now they can throw away the cd and buy the "deluxe" vinyl version!

"are there really young dudes out there super amped about their $12.99 Rumors buy?"

lots of young folks just don't have a good idea of what things sell for. so, if it costs less than a cd they are probably happy most of the time. not ALL young folks obviously, but people into vinyl for kicks or whatever.

used to be people would be all lame and tell you for years that they needed to get their turntables fixed. now people are actually buying turntables. i'm all for it. there's more than enough good stuff for me. and if they get bored with all the stuff they bought i will be at the record store waiting for their overpriced new junk that i can then buy used.

but they can keep their 40 dollar deluxe version of stadium arcadium.

I really couldn't get past the first few paragraphs of that article. I swear, everyone in college nowadays collects vinyl and wears black rimmed glasses. THIS IS NOT SPECIAL. BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE IS NOT SPECIAL.

Yeah it's become a hobby of mine to try to guess the time lapse between the steps

-noisy austin hype of some style revival ("omg have you ever heard BOOTY MUSIC")
-OG stylists flooding stores ("why are there 2452834572987 used copies of 'bass rock express' in the bins this week?")

haha, I didn't even get to the part where they start talking about people at NYU. I actually saw someone sitting outside one of our dorms with a record player and the self titled BSS record last year. Everyone here is that guy. Except me obviously. All the vinyl I buy is not lame at all and in no way falling into any stereotype at all.

yeah the articles and the shit people say is silly but the vinyl resurgence of the past couple years has given me so much increased pleasure in my music listening that people can write that stupid article every day and I'll be quite happy about it. you know? thank God I can get shit on vinyl now pretty easily. from the artist end, too, there's just this feeling that people give more of a shit about the stuff that comes out on vinyl. they ask questions about it, they're interested in it, it's not something they download and immediately lose track of in a 1,000,000-song library. fuckin', long live the vinyl revival even if there's plenty of profiteering behind it!

in re: Ned's comment, we've had the "should people have to do more work to acquire vast collecitons?" argument before I think, I stand firmly on the "yes I am an asshole and yes it sucks that any douchebag can hear Great White Wonder without having to do any groundwork" side of the question. Value in hard work, builds character, etc.

My post was poorly constructed. My apologies.

Yeah, I've always agreed with John on the groundwork issue. Reason I highlighted that quote myself above is that getting ahold of (or listening to) music on vinyl never struck me as "incovenient"; it's just fun (at least if you stick to thrift stores and dollar bins; these prefabricated "collectibles" with useless bonus doodads are beyond my comprehension.)

Totally disagree with John, Chuck, and anyone else arguing that music is in any way improved by being hard to come by. Get it to as many people as possible, as conveniently as possible, I say. And as far as the vinyl's concerned, I hated it before there was any such thing as CDs.

I don't think they're arguing that the music is improved by the rarity of the object, it's the integrity of the person that's built by the work put into the acquisition.

Since I'm about to unload thousands of records this month, I'm happy as punch with articles like this, for obvious reasons of raw greed.

Otherwise, I agree with John, Xhuck, etc.

On the other hand, vinyl's now taking up half my living room. I don't want to pay more to rent a place with an extra room just for vinyl, sorry. It has to go. :/

^donut so very very otm on that last point (and the first one too!)

My friend Rick in Pennsyltucky e-mails me weekly about the new old 8-tracks he's found. He's a scrounger of southeast Pennsy's antique-and-scrap marts were they must still be plentiful. He even knows which color casings are the best between the gray and the red. One series was fabricated with superior glue and is therefore now less likely to split when put into a player after decades of sitting in a box in the garage somewhere.

Now there's an eccentric article waiting to be written.

Actually...

http://www.amazon.com/Wrong-Theyre-Right-Russ-Forster/dp/B0009ZE95I

(Though that movie doesn't deal with lots of the details George's friend Rick knows about, obviously.)

Mackro how are you selling your stuff? Let ILM know if it's on Amazon/eBay.

It won't be on Amazon nor eBay. Rev called for first crack at it.. after that, whatever Jive Time Records wants from it.

Oh man...vinyl v CDs...it's about as exciting as arguing about operating systems. I can only have this discussion with so many people in life before I'm like, 'Yeah, yeah, opinions 4 me, I get it..."

And, really, nothing will really outlive anything.

At least until you get a format that is able to give you the sound quality of a wav-file, in no more bytes than an mp3-file, then the CD is needed. Because of sound quality.

a format that is able to give you the sound quality of a wav-file, in no more bytes than an mp3-file

that is mathematically impossible. but storage and bandwidth are always getting larger/faster/cheaper.

that is mathematically impossible.

they said that about hotel rooms in a taco, but by golly they made them!

in my imagination at least

<3

Young vinyl collectors said digital technology had made it easy for anyone — even parents — to acquire vast, esoteric music collections.

You'd be forgiven for thinking so (OK?).. However..

d/l sites live on the "If you like Kaiser Chiefs, we recommend" or "based on your last 10 d/l tracks/albums, how about..." which negates the esoteric.

As opposed to flicking through a bunch of old LPs and risking £2 or less on something that looks strange/different.

Geir, you're overestimating the importance of sound quality to the majority of the music buying public. People who are in high school and middle school now have grown up with mp3s, and the lower sound quality they provide. For most of them 128 kbps probably sounds about right, which is more than a little bit scary. A ringtone is an acceptable way of listening to music. In the larger scheme of things here, sound quality means less and less. This whole vinyl resurgence is getting blown a little out of proportion, if you ask me.

The Box Set (CDs) is the Archival format

The LP is the Hardback bound format

Deluxe CD is the hardback 'special' format

Normal CD is the 'paperback' format.

Downloading is the

sorry, got bored.

xpost

Re the 8-track movie. I had never even heard of it and it's never been shown on cable in the last few years, far as I can tell. 8-track was definitely inferior in sound to vinyl. And it was very susceptible to stretching which introduced a lot of wow and flutter.

I had an eight track in the car and my brother had a DELUXE console in his room. The idea with deluxe was to buy 8-track blanks and record to them. We tried this was a live broadcast of Robin Trower on FM radio around '73-'74. Believe it or not, the console came with two microphones and you were supposed to line them up with your broadcast source. If it was from the radio, your two stereo speakers.

The idea was good but the results weren't. The fidelity was poor and if anyone talked in the room during the broadcast, the compression built into the circuit made for an interesting interjection of voice over. It might have been better for live recording but we never tried it.

I'm sure 8-track sound is/was superior to MP3. The tapes, when they worked right consistantly, were very enjoyable.

One of the problems associated with its age, and Rick relates this all the time, is the sudden snapping of it in the car deck. No the problem is opposite, there elasticity is all gone. His solution is to keep scrounging for replacements. Apparently there's a bottomless pit of them left over if you know where to look.

It's definitely never going to rise beyond this level. The format's age-related problems make it way too brittle.

Downloading is the... E-book format!

Whatever, dudes. Everything dies in the end. Time destroys everything, maaaaan.

I'm sure 8-track sound is/was superior to MP3.

Really? I find that hard to believe (as someone who was first introduced to Rumours on 8-track).

My friend swears by it. I'm not at all fond of Mp3-encoded music, though. Most of the stuff I downloaded and burned to disc -- and it was a lot at one point, I never play anymore. Actually, it's just waiting to be thrown out.

But -- really -- taste and my experience also figure into it. It was simply a pain-in-the-ass to make old DD&THK recordings Internet ready. And at one point I just said, the hell with it. MP3 just messed up so many things in the stereo image and high and low ends, making things harsh where it wasn't supposed to be...

In any case, there's an 8-track site which explains everything you'd ever want to know about the format, called 8 Track Heaven, which suffered from problems associated with tech decisions made or not made during development and continued support. But 8-track simply WAS THE WAY to listen to recorded pop music in the car in the Seventies. At that point, cassettes just weren't up to snuff.

One thing you don't have with MP3 which everyone had with 8-track was crosstalk. No matter your diligence, your player would eventually succumb to misalignment and you'd either live with it or have to take it in for realignment, a hassle.

There’s more to be said for the poor distribution and un-ease of access to records/cd's back in the day than anything regarding the vinyl format in & of itself making it more “meaningful”. My music budget at that age was allowances, cruddy jobs, and x-mas/b-day money. Hopefully I’d find an occasional bootleg at a record fair a couple times a year & be ecstatic about that. National Record Mart (R.I.H.) was the only place you could buy new music growing up and they were clueless about anything outside the top 20. So whatever you DID manage to get your hands on, you had to play more by default.

Now, all you need is access to the net and now you can download overnight what it would take me 10 years to get without leaving your jammies and wake up to them the next day! I honestly don’t know if I would love music as much if I grew up now as opposed to then. Maybe the waiting is the best part?!?

the thing that people (like me!) should do well to remember is that there's research suggesting that no matter what your listening habits are when you're young, the stuff you listen to in your youth is always gonna be the stuff that hits you hardest - for neurological/brain chemistry reasons, not nature-of-the-market-during-that-time reasons

all that said, I still do think that it's hardly reactionary to say "the journey itself is as important as the destination," and to note that the age of instant-gratification shortens all journeys & strongly privileges the destination

i don't think easier access to music has made me love it any less

No,i don't think i love it any less, more like Eddie Murphy in Raw being offered a cracker in the after starving for weeks.. "MMMMM is that a Ritz, that's not regular cracker, oh yes thats a Ritz, good good good..." When there's less of it around, you tend to replay what little you have more is all.

i meant-cracker after starving, i need to proofread more damnit!

"The Box Set (CDs) is the Archival format

The LP is the Hardback bound format

Deluxe CD is the hardback 'special' format

Normal CD is the 'paperback' format.

Downloading is the" free newspaper?

right now in l.a. there must be dungeons full of acoustic mathmaticians and industrial scientest types chained to their desks being whipped raw by frenzied record execs screaming "twice as expensive and 100 times better sounding than cds, and totally unclonable! hurrry up goddamnit!!!!" while foaming at the mouth

there's research suggesting that no matter what your listening habits are when you're young, the stuff you listen to in your youth is always gonna be the stuff that hits you hardest

I'd like to see this research. Cuz Ghislain Poirier is hitting me pretty damn hard right now and I haven't been "youth" for quite some time now.

And while JD's "Value in hard work, builds character, etc." probably has some sort of truth to it, I'm not 100% certain of the character that may have been built up in me from years of paging through dusty vinyl and dealing with record store swellheads and going to record conventions and trying not to look excited by that rare ass Little Nell single and having some jerk say "you can be my fingers" and then look at every record I was looking at over my shoulder ("yeah, yeah, that's the band Rick James was in...keep going") instead of waiting for me to get done with that row of records* just like I did VERY patiently when I saw a dude skip slooooooowly past a copy of Godz 2 (which sucked anyway, Lester Bangs!) and reminding the "music sucks today" hippie for literally years to bring Hoboken Saturday Night to his store so I could fuckin buy it (even though I'm sure it would've been as hideously water-damaged as the West End 12"s he was selling for $5 a pop**), etc.

If blogspot could do away with that noise, then I'll forgo hard work (besides there is SOME work involved in finding music on the internet).

* So hell yeah, I went waaay slower forcing dude to flee.

** Never got it from him either, the fucker.

I've still never heard The Disposals (assuming there's something to hear) and Disturbed Furniture.

"yes I am an asshole and yes it sucks that any douchebag can hear Great White Wonder without having to do any groundwork"

GWW is the example here, is it not? A lot of think pieces on Napster mentioned either that or "I'm Not There" to demonstrate how P2Ps democratized record searching. And I bet if we could access search data from Napster's early days, we'd find that "I'm Not There" was indeed one of the first things people searched for (and thus it's no surprise we now have Todd Haynes' film/sdtk).

But GWW speaks to a social history of access and distribution and buzz behind vinyl vs. CD vs. mp3, e.g. who heard "I'm Not There" before Napster and how?

Geir, you're overestimating the importance of sound quality to the majority of the music buying public. People who are in high school and middle school now have grown up with mp3s, and the lower sound quality they provide. For most of them 128 kbps probably sounds about right, which is more than a little bit scary. A ringtone is an acceptable way of listening to music. In the larger scheme of things here, sound quality means less and less. This whole vinyl resurgence is getting blown a little out of proportion, if you ask me.

To be a bit Hegelian: An action will always cause a reaction, and the other way round. Things aren't going to stay like that. Mobile phone sound quality will get better, and the kids will be more interested in sound quality. Surely, we were when growing up in the 80s, why should today's kids be unable when we weren't?

Regarding people caring about sound quality: look at how many people are using apple ear buds or something similar, and then listening to them in loud subways (or another big elephant in the room that annoys me: while people are essentially driving steamrollers over piles of final scratch in the street, I've gone to clubs where half the detail of the music is lost to people talking. Sure if it's Mp3's it's unacceptable, but when you have to put your head up to the speaker, at already tinnitus inducing levels (thank God for earplugs)not to mention bass cranked to the point where you can't even hear kickdrums, just abstract blurs of low-frequency gargle. ugh!). People don't really care, not to mention that on cheap headphones/speakers, there honestly isn't much difference between 192kbs and wav, and certainly not on the subway.

*Sure if it's Mp3's it's unacceptable, but when you have to put your head up to the speaker, at already tinnitus inducing levels (thank God for earplugs, and don't get me started on bass cranked to the point where you can't even hear kickdrums, just abstract blurs of low-frequency gargle. ugh!) it's alright). People don't really care, not to mention that on cheap headphones/speakers, there honestly isn't much difference between 192kbs and wav, and certainly not on the subway.

P.S. I buy and am a fan of vinyl.

I just wish i would see someone write a piece praising the cd like they do vinyl. I came in on the cusp of the mass market push to CD, so, that's where i'm comfortably familiar. Hard to beat a properly sourced and mastered cd imho. Long live tha' silver!!!

There's probably a better thread than this to post this link on, but anyway:
http://www.thevinylfactory.com/vinyl-factory-news/catalogue-album-sales-overtake-new-releases-2015/

Back catalogue sales in US eclipsed new release sales last year. Presumably attributable, at least in part, to the vinyl revival.

Didn't back-cat CDs manage this feat also?

Maybe its just the legacy of THE format of 20C music up till the last decade, followed by a bad taste in the mouth when CDs were massively overpriced. And yes, the bass always sounds better on vinyl.