Teens think vinyl's groovy, Time says
(Credit:
Steve Guttenberg)
Audiophiles never gave up on vinyl, but now kids are driving a current LP boom.
Kristina Dell's feature article in Time magazine looks at the trend of people, including teens, turning to vinyl to escape the awful digital grime of downloads and MP3s.
"Bad sound on an iPod has had an impact on a lot of people going back to vinyl," one teen says. Another teenage vinyl devotee tells Time, "Most things sound better on vinyl, even with the crackles and pops and hisses."
And when you figure that LPs usually cost a little more than CDs and iTunes, you can conclude that some kids are willing to pay more for what they truly value! Wow, the kids really are all right!
Sure, the retro appeal of vinyl, the large format, cover art, and the tactile feel of the vinyl experience are responsible for the resurgence. The Warner Music Group posted a 30 percent increase in vinyl sales last year, and indie labels are cranking out new vinyl titles all the time. Used LPs, selling for a buck or less are easy to find at yard sales, used bookstores, and I've personally found dozens of perfectly good records on the street. The future of CDs may be in doubt, but vinyl will be around for the long haul.
Steve Guttenberg is a frequent contributor to magazines and Web sites including Home Entertainment, Playback, and Ultimate AV. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
"Vinyl records, especially the full-length LPs that helped define the golden era of rock in the 1960s and '70s, are suddenly cool again."
Maybe they are looking for the good "music", not the "media" (vynil). Part of the postmodernism mistakes is looking in the wrong place.
What ever happened to the Super CDs and DVD Audio meant to replace the conventional CD?
Turntables are actually easy to come by - DJs never "gave up" on them, so every Guitar Center has a half-dozen models in stock. And because they have to survive DJ abuse, they're generally better quality now than the flimsy crap most boomers owned in the 60s and 70s.
As for cassettes, I'm amazed yours are still playable. I digitized anything that was irreplaceable years ago, because you can practically watch a tape degrade before your eyes.
What will they think of next?
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by 4schler
January 14, 2008 3:10 PM PST
- It could be because of the music being cool again (or still), except for that it's almost all available digitally anyway, some even for free. Plus, I know I see a LOT more teens and college students in record stores that sell vinyl than anyone over the age of 25 or so.
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(6 Comments)Personally, having inherited a hefty collection of vinyl from my parents, I know that that has certainly been a great starting point for my own vinyl collection, and being able to add some of my favorite records from the past 15 years or so to that collection has been a great experience. I'm sure plenty of other relative new-comers to the vinyl world have similar stories. Vinyl really does have a different sound and feel to it that I think is worth experiencing.
For the record, I'm 20, and I own about 500 LPs, about 150 of which that I've bought myself (in addition to cds - I have doubles of many albums), ranging from full-length recordings of Wagner's "Ring" cycle to Yes' "Close to the Edge" to Radiohead's "OK Computer" and, more recently, "In Rainbows." It doesn't hurt that painfully popular modern bands and musicians (like Radiohead) are beginning to believe in vinyl again too, nor does the recent increase in the popularity of turntable-ism, as more and more would-be DJs (also predominantly teens and college kids) are starting their own vinyl collections to sample and scratch.