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. 

Your ignorance is appalling, your hypocrisy monumental.  Snobs of any kind are repulsive. But those who appreciate good things aren’t. Perhaps you think gourmets are inherently “snobs.“ The same can be said about people who appreciate good music as opposed to the base crap on the current top 40. That’s probably you because you probably have good taste. Your mindset would label you a “snob” if you were into the top 40 crap. You’re a very angry, immature, defensive and ultimately boastful person (I have SOOOOO many records) etc. As for “imperfect” media. They all are. Files get erased, CDs scratch and degrade to the point of becoming uplayable. Tapes ooze binder. And records, properly played back will last a lifetime and longer, and not degrade appreciably. I don’t know how much you really know about caring for and playing back records….however, I suspect very little because such knowledge would make you a “snob” and you don’t want to be a “snob.“

These are the types of responses I expected from this column. As someone who has thousands of vinyl records (I never stopped buying vinyl), I don’t romanticize the medium. Why? Because vinyl sucks. Let me count the reasons…

They are space consuming. My house is filled with records, singles and 78’s. Moving them is also a heroic bitch as they are heavy and fragile.
They degrade. No matter how careful you are with them, they eventually loose their analog warmth over time. Scratches are inevitable.
They are an imperfect means of sound replication. They warp, they bruise easily and break.

Again, you need to remember that I have thousands of records and a system to squeeze every once of audio analog goodness out of them. I suckled on a vinyl breast so my opinions (and never forget they are nothing more than my opinions) are rooted in everyday listening experience. I have spent god knows how many hours flipping through crates all over god’s good world looking for particular music on the antiquated medium. I clean my records every time they go under the needle and still they go bad. Despite this, I love my records.

But I hate sound snobs. Always have and always will.  They kill music. It also has been my experience that people who brag and boost about their systems the most are the least likely to play music themselves. Record collecting is defined by it’s snotty snobbery. It becomes more about parading one’s consumer superiority than actual music appreciation.

In the words of Fugazi, you are not what you own.

Having been born in the era of vinyl, I love the internet and the MP3 revolution. It has liberated music and, fingers crossed, the Internet and the advent of the MP3 has the ability to finally kill the music industry. So much music was unavailable before the internet, but now, with a simple high speed connection, the wealth of music is available at your fingertips. I have literally spent years looking for music on vinyl and that meant a heroic amount of time, money and effort trying to find certain recordings. While some want to romanticize this search for sound, I don’t. It kept the lion’s share of music out of the reach of human ears. Only obsessive treasure hunters like myself heard them and that ain’t right.

Part of the reason I did my radio show (and podcasts) is to expose music that people probably wouldn’t ever hear. Now with the Internet, the average person who doesn’t have the time to spend a significant portion of their life in record stores can find music with greater ease. That is an advance that any music lover should cheer.

For bands, people who actually make music, the Internet is a god send. In olden times, an artist’s access to the public was severely limited. In these modern times, you can build a web site and anyone in the world can hear your music. That is revolutionary. I have heard so much great music from bands that I would have never heard if it were not for the internet. I have also found great high resolution digital copies of recordings of music that is no longer in print or I would have had to pay a collector’s inflated price for an original copy. For years, anything that wasn’t the Eagles or Madonna was virtually impossible to find. You had to go to the one record store that might possibly have certain releases in stock and even then it was no guarantee that they would have it. The advent of the MP3 has leveled the playing field in the favor of the artists. Let us all cheer.

The MP3 also puts the emphasis squarely on the music. There is no cover to look at, no liner notes to read, no extras at all just music. The MP3 cures you of you troublingly need to hold something in your greedy little hands. Again, you are not what you own.

And yes MP3’s suck too just like vinyl. They degrade and they can be of poor quality. The best advantages of MP3’s is that they don’t take up any physical space, they are easily transportable and are readily accessible. I have spent countless hours looking for music in my collection and now, once I have imported them into my computer, all I have to do is type the band, song or genre in and there it is. Awesome.

Again, it’s all about music. I don’t care what format it is on as I long as I can be moved by it.

What a silly, defensive post, filled with straw men and self-inflicted delusions.  You know what? HDTV is pretty lame too. It’s all about THE FOOTBALL GAME not about watching it on a 65” plasma TV. It’s just as good on a 13” black and white set and I fear all of this delusional desire for HDTV will lead to a bunch of video snobs one upping each other with the size of their TVs and the black levels and such. THAT’S IDIOCY. And so was your message. Kids weaned on files have been deprived of good sound, of musical textures, touch and even emotional content. A friend brought over a friend who grow up with files and a tinny sounding computer speaker system. The kid was a big Dylan fan. He’d only heard Dylan as MP3 files. I played him an original pressing of “Tangled Up In Blue” on an original Columbia 1A pressing on a system that in your world identifies me as a “snob” and in mine identifies me as someone who really likes to LISTEN with undivided attention to music. The kid literally was in tears after the track played. “I never heard that song, really,“ he sniffed. “I heard the bare outlines. I missed the feel of the pick on the guitar strings. I missed the emotional essence of Dylan’s performance.“ That’s what he said and he’s no “audiophile snob” like me. But he GOT IT in a minute. And so are thousands of kids every day when they hear vinyl properly played back. There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s something wrong with your thinking based on what you’ve posted above. Give people some credit. Most will simply find a new and better way to enjoy recorded music. The terminal A-hole snobs will find a way to make it about the possessions. But if it wasn’t vinyl, they’d find something else to apply it to, like cars, or running shoes, or watches, or whatever. So what???? That’s their problem not the problem of music lovers who want a better listening experience. You need a serious attitude adjustment..

It’s the Format, Stupid.

CDs are going away thanks to iPod, iTunes, Zunes, and the rest of the ruins. Illegal downloading is so popular even Mormons are teaching it to unbaptized families as they tour their way through suburbs on their bicycles.

No one really likes paying for a download. Why? because they get nothing in return for their money. It’s an equity issue, at heart. Buy the vinyl - get something to hold, to enjoy, to collect, to listen to, to digitize to your iPod if you have a USB turntable, to share with your friends, and maybe to sell off later on. Buy the MP3 and you get ... permission. An extended rental. You can’t do anything with it.

It’s easy to vilify audiophiles and other vinyl “snobs” - and while you’re doing that you’re holding your own nose higher in the air. “Look how cool I am. I never stopped listening to or buying vinyl. All you Johnny Come Latelys just catching on, are you?“

I’m happy that there is a vinyl resurgence. I prefer to buy vinyl over CDs (the liner notes are too small, they don’t look good up on my wall, and those plastic jewel cases always crack, and the vinyl issue usually has much less dynamic compression - which I freaking HATE about CD). With the vinyl record I get everything I want - and now I even get the CD or a free download of the album. I can buy new material from new bands on new labels making new music - expanding the horizons.

And while you may feel high and mighty thumbing your nose at audiophiles’ obsession with good sound, if it weren’t for people like that we’d wind up with recordings that sound like they are being projected through a telephone handset. It’s like being fed a wonderfully crafted meal ... after its been chewed by someone else. You say that the music matters, not the format - but i disagree. Format equates to quality of sound most times, and music and sound can’t be separated (unless you read scores and can imagine an orchestra in your head. Bravo).

Format matters because sound matters because music matters, which is why vinyl still matters.