To carry on with the theme for
Record Store Day posts throughout April, I thought i'd share with you my top ten reasons as to why we collect, love and prefer our music and listening to it on vinyl over digital versions and CDs. And no, it's not because I want to be hip or because it's fashionable. If you love vinyl too, feel free to leave your own reasons why in the comments - I'd love to hear them!
Childhood Memories
Records actually are my first childhood memories of music, I danced to them to the living room as a child. Vinyl amazed me - they were so visual, heavy and there - tapes were annoying because you'd have to rewind them or they'd get into a tangled mess. My parents didn't have a huge vinyl collection, but it did span from The Beatles, Boney M to Abba from what I remember. Sadly like many people, they got rid of many of their vinyls when CDs went big.
Pops and Crackles
From the click of starting the turn table, the hiss before the music begins as the needle dances itself over from the edge to the first groove to any pops and crackles, vinyl music to me at least, just sounds better. There I said it. Mind you because as we listen to a lot of rock music, that kind of music drowns out any crackles you might come across.
Talking Point
Through the people you talk to in record shop to friends and colleagues, vinyl and collecting them gets people talking - they are interested in why and how you started to collect them, from where and what kind of music. Older generations especially when they see us head diving into piles of them at estate sales love knowing us younger folk are continuing to play the music they played at our age, that the vinyl is being appreciated and loved just as much as they were in the 1950's to 1970's.
Hand Me Down Factor
Looking through people's vinyl collections is a method of looking through a person's life - their tastes and their attitudes. They are tangible reflections, objects and memories of times and places. The art work to the songs account and record moments in history and through handing them down tor purchasing them second hand keeps them alive and listened too. How likely is anyone going to be handing down their CD collection to their children and grandchildren yet along their digital hard drive of songs?! Knowing they were listened to and appreciated back in previous decades amazes me - I always wonder who's hands held the vinyl before you.
Vinyl Makes You Listen
From start to finish vinyls make you listen to the music. You have to listen for the side ending, you physically have turn them over, you can't put them on shuffle or easily skip a track. You become more engaged and aware of the music you're hearing. You appreciate and are willing to pay for the record because you can handle it, you can feel it, digital files, are just words on a screen, you can't touch it - therefore people are less willing to pay for it - hence why record companies are dropping like flies. Vinyls were designed to be listened to and enjoyed as a whole - from the first track to the final one - many tell a story in the order they appear on the track listing, modern digital downloads are about one song that rarely relates to anything else.
The Whole Package
Aesthetics - yeah I'm that shallow to actually like looking at their art work, handling a vinyl, taking it out of a sleeve. The whole package makes you appreciate them all the more. With vinyls you get great LP artwork - from covers (just think of Sgt. Pepper) to everything that might be included inside - liner notes, posters to designs on the sleeve and the vinyl itself. Granted you get art work on CDs but it's smaller and as a digital file, well it's just not there.
Vinyl's are Better for the Environment
Surprisingly you'd think the world of digital music and clouds would be cleaner for the environment - think again.
Digital Music News suggests LPS are actually greener. To be digital you need the added components of smartphones, iphones (and the whole i-world gear as I call it) to headphones which all more then likely end up in landfills when we purchase the newest edition or they break - because they will break - that's all part of their plan to make you buy more and more so you make them more money. Don't get me wrong I know you need equipment for records - yet vintage turntables work as amazing as new ones - ours is from the 1970's a works like a dream.
Vinyl is much less likely to end up in the landfill for a number of reasons, it's much more likely to be saved and collected, records which don't sell are often melted and remade into new records and the plastic itself are typically not as damaging. There's even the suggestion that vinyl collectors themselves are typically much more environmentally aware then the mass cloud music lovers.
They Are Relatively Cheap to Collect
Whether you purchase your vinyl online, at estate sales or via record stores, the price of vinyl is more then reasonable for new or second hand alike. While condition and who the vinyl is of, does play an important factor, especially in second hand alongside release date or limited editions, you can pick up some perfectly old, big named vinyl for easy money. At estate sales we tend to pay on average $1 to $3 a record (it depends more on if it's a posh company running the estate sale), record stores you do pay more dependent upon the artist.
Vintage Music Sounds Better on Vinyl
To me listening to bands from by gone years need to be listened through the original audio devices of that period, Motown needs those hisses and crackles, music explorations of Led Zeppelin needs the amazing cover art work, original Beatles records need to be on en original 12" with the memories of the former listeners and owners attached to it.
Vinyl Has Stood the Test of Time
Vinyl, in one form or another have been around since 1894 (yes really) and are still being produced especially by indie labels. That alone should tell you something - we have a lot of vinyl's from the 1950's - will CDS still be around and or collected in another 70 years, I doubt it. While 8 tracks, cassettes and CDS have come, and nearly all but gone, they are still being produced and used. Generation after generation turn to vinyl as their music of choice whether they are the average John Doe off the street, DJ or audiophile.
Hope you're all enjoying this series of posts as much as I have enjoyed writing and sharing them all with you. Next week I'll be exploring the adventures and the somewhat limitations of trying to hunt down and collect Motown records in the city it was created in - it's harder then you might think.
