Some would have you believe that vinyl records are making a come back. Well, despite what some may think, they never really went away. They just took a backseat as CD’s and Mp3’s were introduced to the marketplace. Now that piracy has come to define both of these once industry approved and mandated forms of musical commerce, the push to back to bring back yesterday is in full swing as album sales are skyrocketing as the rest of the music industry goes further down the toilet.

In a recent article on MSN (“Music lovers rediscover the timbre of the turntable”), the plight of Travis Dryden is explored in explaining why some listeners are going back to vinyl. As co-founder of the Vinyl Preservation Society based out of Boise, Idaho, Dryden and other pompous audiophiles got together and had a big good old-fashioned circle jerk to discuss which medium is the best for music replication. They listened to all the formats with their discerning, precious ears and concluded that nothing beats vinyl. “We found our love of vinyl overtook the others,” he said. “We knew there had to be others like us.” Yeah, there are plenty of people like you guys. The music world is filled with pretentious assholes that have nothing better to do than to sit around jerking each other off agreeing about how great music sounds on vinyl.

The money grubbing whores in the music industry couldn’t be happier with Dryden and his record collecting buddies’ conclusions. When CD’s hit the marketplace, many (including Dryden) sold off or disposed of their existing collections and replaced them with digital formats. Now that vinyl is supposedly hip again, the industry will be able to sell a single recording to these people for the third time. And you can bet when a new format for music listening is inevitably introduced in the future, these same people will be lining up to buy that same recording yet again. Formats will change but idiots will always stay the same. They’ll buy whatever you sell them. Wash, rinse and repeat…

What sickens me the most about the vinyl revival is that it will cultivate smug feelings of superiority rather than music appreciation. People will horde limited editions, specialty pressings and import releases as if having these records elevates them to a higher, enlightened plane of consumer being. I can hear it now. You only have an MP3 version of that? That sucks. I have the 180-gram, British import blue vinyl with the limited edition gatefold cover of it that I only play on my vintage turntable with proper equalization and true stereo balance. That’s the only way to listen to it properly.

I never stopped listening to or buying vinyl. The main reason for this is not superior sound quality, but because it is the only format that an untold wealth of music is available on. Also, having spent the better part of my life buying records, it would be silly (and imperatively expensive) to replace my collection with whatever the latest industry mandated format was, is or what will be. I like that records are being issued with access codes to digital formats as that gives you the best of both worlds, but romanticizing vinyl is the folly of people with too much time and disposable income on their hands.
After all, it’s the music that matters and not the format you hear it on. 

Hey guys - check out this link, Greg Calbi on “Loudness Wars” - very interesting video

http://www.artistshousemusic.org/videos/mastering+engineer+greg+calbi+on+compression+and+the+loudness+war+in+mastering

“I don’t think Bopst hates people.  Just you maybe. : )“

I can deal with that.

“On the other hand why buy a whole album which may be all crap but one song when I can buy the single decent track.  Why buy the whole cow when I can buy one filet mignon?“

I agree. All I’m saying is that the choice to buy the vinyl should be there. You and I agree that the vinyl is a superior product when it comes to sound. For those of us who value the music AND the sound, we’re called “romantics” by Bopst, as if sound and music should be separated.

“but romanticizing vinyl is the folly of people with too much time and disposable income on their hands.
After all, it’s the music that matters and not the format you hear it on. “

He might as well be saying:

“romanticizing filet mignon is the folly of people with too much time on their hands. After all, it’s the protein that matters and not the flavor and aroma.“

Calling people who prefer vinyl old-fashioned circle-jerkers, pretentious assholes, and foolish romantics is bound to get a few reactions from those of us who feel he’s being a pretentious asshole and a snob.

And so we called him out.

To BBD:

Then you’re talking about an investment comparison and not a value comparison.  The value of the purchase still depends on the user. 

Vinyl is a tangible product.  A downloaded file is not.  If you want to be a collector, go tangible.  On the other hand why buy a whole album which may be all crap but one song when I can buy the single decent track.  Why buy the whole cow when I can buy one filet mignon?

I don’t think Bopst hates people.  Just you maybe. : )

Hey Chunky,

I understand your point and I respect it.

My point about MP3 having no value is sort of math-based: You can’t re-sell it like you can re-sell a record, therefore it has no value. Once you buy it, you “have” nothing except access, like a permanent rental. So, if you buy the vinyl, you have something actual, transferable.

The nicest thing about buying vinyl these days is simply this: They include the digital file (by download, included CD, or even USB drive) for free with the purchase. This gives you everything, whereas buying a download doesn’t.

As an “old timer” (I’m actually Gen-X with you), I’m looking at all the angles. I’ve downloaded my share of iTunes files - more than my share. Hell, I’m on my 5th iPod. I’m not technology-averse. I’ve explored as many angles of media as is available to me, and vinyl came out on top.

For sound, for value, for everything else (I love collectibility, artwork, liner notes, cool colored vinyl, etc). Am I some elitist snob because I like to collect things? Maybe in Bopst’s view, but I think that logic might fall apart if you consider other collectible pursuits.

Comic Books ... should they just be available online and never printed again?

Stamps, coins, beanies, whatever ... there is an appeal that can’t otherwise be addressed by “virtual property.“

I’m actually really confused about this resistance to vinyl. You wrote this:

“Vinyl is problematic and has limited value in everyday use strictly from a user standpoint.  Vinyl sounds better.  No question.  You’re right.  I agree it sounds better.  However, it isn’t practical for most people anymore.  MP3s are mobile.“

I completely agree with you! Who’s to say that you can’t take the digital freebee given to you when you buy the vinyl and put it on your iPod? Who’s to say you can’t digitize your vinyl via a nice USB turntable and make the music portable? We used to do this with cassette tapes, what’s the big difficulty with doing it for CDR or MP3?

I think the overall value proposition for buying the vinyl record is infinitely greater than that offered by paying for a simple download. If you value portability, you can have that with your vinyl purchase anyway. But it’s nice to have actual property in exchange for your money.

And by the way - I’m not at odds with where the profits go. I do tend to stroke the issue with a sledgehammer sometimes. I’m incredibly happy that I can buy new vinyl, that bands and labels think it’s important to release vinyl.

And Bopst doesn’t hate vinyl - that mush is clear. He hates people. The people he hates are those he’s identified as elitist snobs - and he must think I’m one of them.

I got an email from one of my local record shops today and it was funny and sad. It described an experience at a record show that would have driven me nuts. I’ve excerpted this from Shannon’s story (which I received in the Criminal Records email today):

“It was then that it occurred to me that comic book collectors are cooler than record collectors. Think about it. The yearly event known DragonCon in downtown Atlanta is chock full of hot goth girls in latex cat suits and vampire nurse outfits. They have parties, get wasted, hook up, watch to live Rock and Roll bands and generally have a blast. At the record show, chubby men loudly disagree about the merits of mono and stereo in between bites of melted Butterfingers. “

If chubby men disagreeing about mono and stereo between bites of butterfingers is Bopst’s idea of record collectors, then f*ck yeah - I might hate those guys, too. Bopst’s mission isn’t to eliminate vinyl per se, he just hates those people he’s identified as elitist snobs - if eliminating vinyl causes those people to melt away like the Wicked Witch of the West, then it seems he’s all for it.

For me, I don’t care about that aspect. I’m happy to have the choice, I’m happy to have vinyl available to me because I think it is a vastly superior format in terms of sound, and I value sound above all else when it comes to music, and I want to have the choice to buy it.

Since MP3’s aren’t going to go away, you might say that being pro-vinyl is being pro-choice. It would suck immeasurably if the internet digital delivery idea steamrolled vinyl out of existence just as it is steamrolling CD out of existence. Then we’d have no choice.

To MR Fermer and BBD:

I’m a consumer.  I have no anti-capitalist social agendas about who makes the money and who doesn’t.  I understand how you folks close to the topic can’t separate the two issues.  I can.

To make a statement that MP3s have no value is crazy.  You can argue that vinyl may be a better value for yourself but you can’t say that an online download purchase or any MP3 has no value at all.  If it had no value, people wouldn’t buy them and the product wouldn’t be showing sustained growth.  You can also question the reasons people buy these things and see value in the buying decision but they do see value.  You sound like one of those technologically resistant older people who don’t understand the modern world and how technology has changed it.  Still using a rotary phone too?  Do you own a cell phone?  How far does this anti-technology agenda go? Are you Amish?

Personal social and political agendas aside I think Bopst has an important point here about user value.  I’m smack dab in the middle of being Generation X.  I remember vinyl but maybe owned 5 albums as a little kid before CDs took over for good.  My older brother and sister owned a lot of records.  My brother still has an original Beatles Rubber Soul never taken out of the packaging.  I understand the value of vinyl.  Gen X is all about value.  We don’t care what something costs if it gives us what we want out of it.  Vinyl is problematic and has limited value in everyday use strictly from a user standpoint.  Vinyl sounds better.  No question.  You’re right.  I agree it sounds better.  However, it isn’t practical for most people anymore.  MP3s are mobile.  People are mobile in the modern world.  We move our households a lot, we’re on the go a lot and we travel a lot.  Fifty years ago people were born, lived, worked and died within a 25 to 50 mile radius.  That world is dead and gone.  Using the internet to get my music and using various devises to play it allows me to listen to anything I want, hear it anytime I want and move it wherever I want…  I can’t play vinyl records in my car.  I can’t watch a movie on my turntable.  I CAN plug my IPOD into my car or into a mobile device and take ALL my music with me anywhere I go.  There is value in this purchase.  You may not agree with where the profits go but that’s a separate issue.  There is value.

Great topic Bopst.

EVERYONE has a vested interest in the vinyl resurrection.

It may be more telling that you’re resisting so much in favor of the internet distribution juggernauts.

I can’t for the life of me figure out why you would recommend that people pay for downloads and get nothing in return for their money, instead of recommending that they buy the LP, get the free CD or download with purchase, and actually have something of value in exchange for their investment.

Let’s forget about the sonic disconnect here for a moment - you’re clearly unwilling to concede that the quality of the sound is important. For me and that other guy, the sound of playing a vinyl LP is better than better, it’s exquisite - that’s my reason for collecting, for listening, and for recommending that people buy LPs. That the digital version is a freebee included with the LP most of the time makes the choice even simpler ... when you spend your money, you should buy the LP.

Let’s turn a page for a moment:

How is it that someone so proletarian-friendly and capitalism-averse can recommend that anyone PURCHASE an MP3, knowing full well that the only ones benefitting by the distribution model are the labels - who no longer have to compete for retail space, no longer have to actually produce a product, and can abbreviate your right to liquidate your investment by selling portions of your collection ... because the salable portion of the exchange has been entirely removed?

By recommending that anyone PURCHASE an MP3, you are essentially shilling for the major digital distribution juggernauts. So for all of your Punk Progressive attitude and palaver, you’re pushing The Man’s agenda.

I *do* agree that the internet has made more music more widely available, and that it has opened the free market to bands that might otherwise not have had a chance. Two things come to mind when considering this angle, though: 1) They can’t all be gems ... increase in access has also created an increase in noise floor. 2) Free access to music (MySpace, Pandora, Live365, etc) is not the same as purchasing MP3 -

SO: I would agree with you that the system had been geared against the small guy simply by virtue of access (more in terms of access to radio play and less in terms of access to means of production ... no shortage of bands throughout my lifetime have self-produced and distributed at shows and through local indie shops).

BUT - I remain in vehement opposition to the suggestion that anyone should spend their money on a download. It’s bad advice.

The best advice anyone can take, in my very opinionated opinion, is to purchase the vinyl - and especially purchase vinyl that comes with some manner of digital freebee, whether or not that freebee is a download or an included CD. THEN your readers will actually own something of value in exchange for their money.

Let’s face it - no too many of us have been born into wealthy circumstances such that we can afford to just throw away our money in exchange for the rental-scheme of a purchased download. Most of us have to work for our money, and I suspect most of your readers would like to know that they are not just buying permission to hear something - but rather that they are buying something that has an intrinsic value with the inherent right to transfer that property in exchange for money.

That they get their music delivered in a format that is, by its very nature, higher resolution and more enjoyable is my own point - the reason I keep buying vinyl and the reason I recommend vinyl to others. It is an interesting twist of a bonus, a matter of circumstance these days, that one’s investment in one’s music collection in vinyl is infinitely more valuable (in terms of transferable monetary value) than any MP3 you can buy.

Infinitely. And I don’t use that world colloquially, but rather as a matter of math - since the MP3 has precisely $0.00 in transferable value. Once you spend you money ... it’s gone.

Again - it’s perplexing to see how someone with such a “for the masses” socialist lip-flap could be shilling so hard for The Man.

Or are you not recommending that people actually BUY the MP3, but maybe suggesting with your silence on the matter that they find a way to download without paying ... perhaps infringe copyright?

Hey! Maybe that’s it! Aw man, I’ve been blind ... you’re not suggesting that people BUY anything! Interesting! The Fugazi socialist agenda leaks out ... music should be FREE! Copyright is simply a tool of the capitalist establishment to limit the rights of the listener! Free the music, and you free the people! Free! Free! Free!

Except, of course, for the bands and artists that would like to make a living. Or the producers and engineers who would like to make a living. Or the artists and copy writers who would like to make a living. Or the promoters who would like to make a living. Or the entire industry of hard working people that deliver that final MP3 to you who would like to make a living.

Music doesn’t just happen, it doesn’t just show up like a dandelion in the middle of the lawn. It takes people with talent spending their time and effort to create the art that you so nobly defend. They should be compensated for their work, so their music should be purchased in order to help them pay for their lives and continued ability to produce art.

On the consumer-side, if you’re going to make a purchase, you should get something of value in return for your hard-earned money. If it takes you a day’s worth of work earning wages, and you’ve paid the government its share of your paycheck and you’re left with 75%, and you take what’s left and decide to buy some music - isn’t it wiser to spend that money on something actual instead of something virtual?

So, Bopst ... do you disagree?

I literally dedicated myself and my work to helping save the LP starting in the early 1980s when I heard my first CD at an Audio Engineering Society meeting in Los Angeles. They played Roxy Music’s “Avalon” on a refrigerator sized contraption and it sounded awful. I figured it was new tech, they’d acknowledge the poor sound and strive to make it better before launch but everyone there though it sounded “awesome” and that’s when I started getting to work….

I’m actually in Camarillo, CA at Record Technology Incorporated, America’s premier pressing plant, shooting HD video for my second DVD on how records are made, how to handle and store records, how lacquers get cut to make metal parts to press them, how to clean records and some record collecting tips…

Yes I have a vested interest because I love records and thought it was stupid to chuck them for those crappy little aluminum discs that will never last as long, are poorly packaged and are a ridiculous interim technology. A spinning “digital” disc is silly.

Now you can download high resolution digital files that sound pretty good. Not as good as records, for whatever reasons but certainly better than CDs and infinitely better than fast food MP3s…

It’s telling that you feel this way considering you have a vested interest in vinyl resurrection.

I’ll check out the site…

Okay: I made a turntable set-up DVD you oughta check out. Google me. It’s called “21st Century Vinyl: Michael Fremer’s Practical Guide To Turntable Set-Up.“

I have 15,000 LPs. My favorite possession because of the music…..and the sound…

Bopst,

Just because your particular situation is heavy with inertia doesn’t mean others are like you are have your special needs. My LP collection numbers at a bout 1,000 LPs. Not small, but not overwhelming either. I’ve got a fairly nice system, can listen and get every ounce of loving goodness out of vinyl as well. I don’t know what you’re doing to your records, but I’ve got 50 and 60 year old records that sound stupendous. So few of my records have warped (because I store them vertically), so few of them have scratches (because I handle them properly), and none of them are bruised as I have not punched any of them (bruised?).

I’ve got 20 year old CDs that are pitting and worthless. My whole keith Jarrett: Sun bear Sessions won’t play, neither will several of my DG’s. 

Scratches. CD scratches suck worse than vinyl scratches. Vinyl scratch skips a moment, and you get a full revolution of music before it skips again. CD skips, and it’s a machine gun “kachung kachung kachung kachung” until you push a button and get to the next track.

You assertion that MP3 is squarely about the music is wrong wrong wrong - and possibly disingenuous. I hate to be mean, I don’t mean to be mean - but who doesn’t realize that the MP3 benefits the distributors more than anyone else in the loop? They no longer have to produce anything - they have a file they can replicate infinitely for almost zero cost, and they can charge money for it while delivering nothing in exchange for it.

And the SOUND! My god, man - how can you so easily dismiss the sound quality differential? Do you hate sound? After all the trouble that producers go through to craft lovingly some amazingly gorgeous sonic environments (take the new Gary Louris: Vagabonds, for example), you would sooner listen to it through the equivalent of a pay phone rather than hear everything the artists and producers worked so hard to achieve?

That’s communistic bullshit, pal. Sorry - if people follow your advice, they’ll be following you in a race for the bottom. MP3 is piss-poor and pathetic. And you seem to love the stuff. But at the end of the day - you’re just promoting a way for the labels to get your money in exchange for nothing.

And that is really BAD advice.

Internet Radio, podcasts, Pandora, etc - all of these are essentially free service to the listener. Why, how could you recommend paying - PAYING - for MP3’s? That strikes me as flat out ridiculous.

How can you NOT recommend to people to buy the vinyl (if they are going to spend the money at all), and in exchange for their money they not only get the LP, they get access to the whole album in digital format, as well? That’s having your cake and eating it too - but apparently, not good enough for you? You need to do away with heavy things because you have too many heavy things already?

How about eating concentrated protein paste from a tube instead of having a proper meal? It’s not the experience of the meal people want, it’s just the inherent nutrition - seems to be your argument.

MP3’s are not nearly as enjoyable as vinyl records, and while you may hate sound snobs - you seem to be a snob of a different variety, pushing down the aesthetic enjoyment of music in exchange for some watered down, cardboard cutout ... because it’s lighter, and more proletariat-friendly.

The internet hasn’t liberated music at ALL. It’s just a distribution model that mounts huge net profits for labels that can collect money without having to produce anything solid in exchange for it. It’s a ruse, a rental, a ridiculous waste of your rubles.

McMedia here we come!

Fugazi? Figures you’d quote them.

In the words of Leonard Cohen, “The last refuge of the insomniac is a sense of superiority to the sleeping world. “

Sleep on, Bazarov. The Sleep of Reason Produces Idiots.