Vinyl - Hard to Kill
Vinyl. Impossible to spell. As a matter of fact, even spelling bee winners cringe at the thought of the word, but it's not just hard to spell, it's hard to kill.
There's been dozens of music delivery
formats put out there - 78's and 45's and reel to reel and 8 track,
cassettes and MD discs, CD's and MP3's... plus a whole mess of other
attempts to get us to buy music. Did you know that Miles Davis's
'Kind of Blue' has been released in every single delivery format that
has ever been pushed onto the public? Every single one. Better 'Kind
of Blue' I guess than The Archies, but still...
Vinyl - hard to kill. Especially in
this resurgence of collecting records. I see posts everyday, lots of
them featuring an old (or new turntable) and a spinning disc and an
album cover of some obscure bit of recorded history. Sure, I
subscribe to a couple of pages where you'd expect to see posts like
that, Vintage Audio and some Hi -Fi pages... but it happens all day
long on Facebook too.
You know what I think is neat about
that? I think it's neat that all these young collectors are
discovering a whole 'new to them' treasure trove of music. I've seen
odd old Mike Bloomfield records and funny, obscure Bobby Vinton and
Zappa and Cream and disco. I think that's great. Music lovers
discovering music. Sure you can find tons on the net. Tons and tons
and tons on the net. Endless varieties and styles and genres. You can
find traditional music and secular music and Jazz and folk and blues
and EDM and on and on and on... Want something from that little three
recording label based in Berlin – it's available on the net!
Everything Montovani ever recorded? Easy, it's on the net. Patsy, or
Dolly or Roy or Elvis? Done, done, and done.
But there's something else going on
with young collectors of vinyl that simply cannot be ignored, and
that is the diversity of what they're collecting. Show-tunes show up
as 'gems found in a basement' and lost Jimmy Buffet albums re-appear
and are raved about, there's rough stuff and pop stuff and late night
stuff and great stuff and sad stuff. Tons of stuff and it's mostly
way outside the confines of 'Just the Hits'. The depth and breadth of
what seems to be making it into collections is as vast as the format
has available and I think that's swell! It's not just the hits of
1977 or 1961, it's the strange and obscure, the out of the ordinary
and the magical. And it's all finding it's way into the hearts and
minds and lives of a whole new generation of listeners.
At first I thought it was just going to
be a fad, a passing parade and that vinyl would lose it's way within
a summer of small attention, but I was wrong. Sales continue to rise,
admittedly not at streaming music levels, but sales do continue to
rise. That on it's own is something of a statement. Turntables are
becoming more and more valuable – some reaching two, even three
times their original retail price! There's the whole record care side
of things, the brushes and cloths and sprays and spindle weights.
There's protective sleeves and slip covers, mats and anti static
guns! All this stuff is getting serious attention.
And I know why.
I know because I've lived it, seen it,
felt it, smelt it. Want me to share with you? What it is that's so
special about vinyl? It's not the vinyl. Well, not directly. It's
what it represents – it's a personal collection of music that
required effort and persistence and dedication to amass through a
process that, in the end, means something to someone. Because no one
ever asks to flip through your MP3 collection.
In : Social Comment
Tags: records vinyl lp's music collecting turntable