I knew I shouldn’t have given all my albums to the kids to hang on their walls as examples of ancient music listening artifacts. I bet none of you monkeys had a 3 in 1 Sears stereo system. Records, cassettes and 8 Tracks in one fantastic unit.
While the whole world is talking about Spotify, Pandora, iTunes and other digital music services, a long-forgotten medium has come back from near-extinction: the LP. In 2013, 6.1 million vinyl albums were sold in the United States, up from less than a million in 2005 and 2006. The same trend can be observed in the UK and in Germany, where LP sales have climbed to the highest levels since the early 1990s. Global vinyl sales amounted to $218 million in the past year and it’s all but certain that the vinyl comeback will continue in 2014.
There are several possible reasons for the sudden resurgence of the LP. Music aficionados have always valued the warm, organic sound of vinyl recordings but it may actually be the rise of digital music that contributed most to the uptick in vinyl sales: as great as services such as Spotify are in making music accessible, they also commoditized music to a certain degree and took away the pleasure of owning a physical album. To those who still prefer to own a tangible product, an LP may just add a little more value than a CD does (CD sales have been crushed lately). Plus, as many labels ship vinyl records with download codes, buyers get the best of both worlds when they purchase a vinyl album – they get the convenience of an MP3 download alongside the physical and acoustic pleasures of an LP.
It should probably be noted that vinyl sales still account for a small fraction of overall music revenues, but it’s nice to see that there’s still some life left in a medium that has been around for so many decades.
You will find more statistics at Statista
Everything old is new again. There is nothing new under the sun.
I hope hot-pants make a comeback.
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Still have some in the attic, never forget them. The old 45’s and Juke Box classics.
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Admin does his best to bring back hot-pants.
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My ass is much nicer than that. Ask Avalon.
Relatively Low Tech, should outlast digital.
I think I will start recording my Rants on Vinyl. 🙂
RE
Relatively Low Tech, should outlast digital.
I think I will start recording my Rants on Vinyl. 🙂
RE
Yes, an excellent idea.
Future generations can marvel at your wisdom, and will be so grateful you considered them in your plans.
Don’t forget your recipes for Jack Daniels and eggs as well Dear Savior.
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I wish diners would be next for a comeback.
Open 24 hours, great coffee and breakfast anytime of day and night. Used to be a few in every town.
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recently sold my entire collection of app 500 just to lighten my load in anticipation of a move upcountry.I never played them anymore and had replaced all my favorites with CD’s , which are easier to load and select tracks ,lighter to transport , aren’t as easy to scratch and besides most tin-eared people can’t tell one minute change in tone from another..the return to vinyl is just a fad for those with too much time on their hands and looking for a little attention from kids that don’t know jack about vinyl….or as the kids used to call ’em, those big CD’s
I knew a guy back in 1984 that had a $5000 turntable and a $9000 tonearm perched on top of a 700lb., $2000 stand with spiked feet and vibration isolation pads. The cartridge for the tonearm cost $1200 and came in a beautiful, full sized leather briefcase. All that………nearly $18,000 just to play records! Even then he still needed a preamp/amp or a receiver plus speakers to actually get sound out of it. He was a sgt in the air force.
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Yes IS, People used to get really crazy for perfection. All sorts of companies sprung up with fancy turntables and lightweight tonearms with the craziest specs.
Acoustic Research and Harmon Kardon are a few names I remember. Harmon is still around with advanced music items.
I was into stereo equipment as a young man. I got into buying and selling lots of used equipment in order to make money and trade up to better stuff. I scored a pair of $5000 Nakamichi power amps for $1200 from a young Asian woman who had recently divorced her GI husband and took all his shit! I built quite a system that way and it still rocks!
I still have all my vinyl including a collection of rare picture disks. I can’t imagine it being worth much with everybody being unemployed and broke.
You would be surprised IS, lots of collectors out there. Check out Ebay for a while and see if someone has something like yours listed and see what they go for. Ebay is great for seeing what people are willing to pay for old collectible stuff.
Scott and Pioneer were big selling amps when I was interested, and Koss with their famous headphones.
I had this Dave Mason “spin-art” LP. (Great music by Mason on this record, as well!).
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A bit of history.
The flood of high-end stereo component systems, such as those made by Kenwood and Sony, into American households began during the Vietnam War. U.S. military exchanges in South Vietnam and Thailand were swamped by Japanese stereo manufacturers offering sophisticated amps, pre-amps, reel-to-reel tape recorders, turntables, and speakers at “bargain basement” prices compared to what was being charged at stores in America.
Soldiers, sailors, and airmen snapped these stereo systems up like a fire sale at Macy’s and shipped them home for free. The Japanese marketing ploy worked like a charm as more and more civilians saw these systems in operation and liked what they saw and the sound they heard. Demand grew by leaps and bounds, and the Japanese lowered – yes, lowered – the domestic prices to make the deal even more profitable despite lower profit margins.
And that, dear reader, is what kick-started industry giants such as Sony into high gear.
I still have all my old vinyl from my youth and have never stopped buying it even though I did embrace all the digital mediums. The reason vinyl is making a comeback is that it just sounds better, if you want a quality listening experience then you will put on a vinyl record sit down and enjoy it. If you just want background noise then it really doesn’t matter what the source is.
The other thing about vinyl is that their is a very active subculture of collectors out their that will pay stupid prices for new and vintage releases that have never been opened, called ‘still in the skin’ meaning the wrapping has never been removed.
I bought my dad a combination record/cassette/cd player a few years back for Christmas. It can’t match the sounds that used to issue forth from my scavenged and bargained system I used to own, but is quite better than nothing.
Years ago, as a child, I amassed quite the vinyl collection. Sadly, it ended the way of most of the things I owned as a kid, my little sister destroyed most of them and then I ended up selling the few I had left to keep my family going before the expansion of the economy started in the late 80s.
I still miss them and I still “hear” the B side after the old hit plays on the radio. Just like I can still “hear” the clicking and clacking of the 8 track moving in the middle of an old Supertramp song.
Ah, the good ole days mindset has finally arrived. Wondered when that started happening.
This doesn’t surprise me. I still buy vinyl and it was before my time. Sometime back in high school I got to be quite the music geek and bought all the punk rock albums I could. I also added to my collection over the years when 90s band had previously released LPs. There is still nothing that beats listening to a good album from start to finish. They really don’t make em’ like they used to.
“Back in Black” would have been a great title for this piece. I always found the process involved with buying, caring for, and playing vinyl highly satisfying. Vinyl carries more audio/musical information than digital and the album covers and inserts hold more printed information like photography and art work. I still like compact cassettes too but all decks have a potentially fatal flaw – tapes can get eaten if rubber belts slip. If someone could figure out a way to direct drive the spool spindles that format might make a comeback as well.
I firmly believe that males have an innate psychological need for an abundance switches, dials, slides, push buttons, rocker switches, and lighted meters. The more the better. That trend in stereo equipment probably reached its zenith in the 70s. My JBL 100 Studio Monitors, Kenwood 8006 integrated amp, Yamaha receiver, and most of the other stuff is still going strong and I wouldn’t be surprised if it lasted my lifetime.
From the title, I thought this story was going to be about pants.
I actually owned an 8 track cartridge RECORDER, and I also owned a automobile cassette player (mono, not stereo) waaaay back in 1970! I still own a TEAC reel to reel and about 30 rock n roll reel to reel 4 track tapes!
True story. I never wasted my time or money buying records. I always thought young people who blew their money on records were stupid.I bought cars .Chevelle Malibue(72)Dodge Charger(72)Camaro (69)Unfortunately I sold all of them.Could still kick myself in ass for selling those cars.
boyo boy. Yanno, your ass is much closer to your arms than to your feet.
True story. Honest.
My wife and I attended a high school reunion of hers a couple of months ago. On each dinner table was a nice bouquet of flowers sitting on a “coaster” which turned out to be a vinyl 45 rpm record.
I noticed this and picked up the flowers on our table and looked at the coaster. It was a Lawrence Welk record (“Last Date” and “Remember Lolita”). I started to laugh and asked a friend at the next table to look under his table’s flower vase. Damned if it wasn’t ANOTHER Lawrence Welk record (“Riders in the Sky” and “My Love for You”). Unbelievable.
Here’s the best part. I have both of these rare vinyl records, and they are for sale. This is an exclusive, one-time offer for TBP visitors and will NEVER come this way again. And think about this. Welk’s version of “Riders in the Sky” is known to be the inspiration of the Doors’ mega hit, “Riders on the Storm.”
What am I bid for these two record treasures?
I will give you one bottle of Lawrence Welk bubble soap, SSS, complete and with a bubble wand.
Hey, bb, I bought a light metallic brown ’73 charger with a small 318 engine, but the car had this fast feel, it was a highway car, I bought it in Rantoul for about $1800 and sold it 5 years later over here in Cali for $650. The engine compartment was huge and it was easy to work on, I rebuilt the carb in my dorm room and changed the tranny filter in the hobby shop. I took the distributor out to replace the points wires and plugs, Gary had a laugh with Bill saying, I told you he’d mix the wires, but I went to the library and got a Chilton’s for it and straightened all that out.
Maybe I should have left this for the 70’s article but I’m on the subject of cars, it seems all my childhood was spent in vicarious fun, I don’t believe I ever had fun directly. there were these white kids that ran the local shell gas station, they owned a white ss396, always had it shining, taking up a spot at one of the gas pumps. but they were upstaged by an unseen bunch of guys about a half mile east at the chevron station by the dairy queen. these guys had a blue and white 57 chevy that they did engine run ups with late at night (it was dark, I was a kid, 7pm was late) you could hear that motor a mile away.
Guy at work had a brother who was looking to make extra money. He offered to record any LP to 8track, I was impressed and asked how much, $5. The next day I gave him my favorite, possibly my only LP, Sunny Ozuna and the Skyliners (on Key Loc records!). My musical taste has improved over the years, of course.
Nah.
A lot of great Tex-Mex music came from San Antonio. Tierra from LA was a latecomer.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/magazine/the-brazilian-bus-magnate-whos-buying-up-all-the-worlds-vinyl-records.html?_r=0
El Coyote , in high school there was a guy who owned 56 Chevy. We would race on Friday nights and he always did well.I will never forget that guy or His car.
I may have the wrong b b, you wrote that you were afraid you’d be laughed off the site about some unmentionable deal, bb would never worry about that.
my uncle had a dual tone green 56 chevy, he drove that thing forever, affer that he had a white rambler.
Anyway, my buddy had a baby blue ’63 impala. he also had a neat radio/record player unit that upgraded the car radio. I liked it so much, I think I bought one at radio shack a few years later.
Except mine was not exactly portable, it had a fake wood case with a gray plastic dust cover.