Comments on: Vinyl’s Not Dead — Resurgent Interest Is No Fluke

By: Henry the Wax Man

Henry the Wax Man — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 13:32:44 +0000

If it’s music I want, I buy CD’s. They can be played in the car, they can be ripped to my Ipod (no silly Apple DRM) and if I want to turn my friends on to something I’ve discovered, all I have to do is rip it and burn it (heavens, call the RIAA! He’s a (gasp) PIRATE!). I buy vinyl when it’s something that’s not available easily on CD. There’s lots of stuff out there that’s not going to ever be on CD unless you put it there yourself. And if some CD is only available as an import costing $30.00 and a local thrift shop has the vinyl version, in mint condition, for $1.00, which would you buy?

By: E.J.

E.J. — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 11:04:16 +0000

There are a million sides to this issue. One is that labels don’t see the bigger value in opening up the vaults for anyone because of the upfront costs associated with doing that. It’s not the actual manufacturing costs, it’s everything else — promoting and distributing stuff that they don’t see as worth what someone else sees in it.

Another is that some artists have made the decision not to re-release items over which they have say so. The first example I can think of is Neil Young. Neil Young, for his part, has a great deal of control over his masters, apparently, and he hasn’t had (nor, as it’s been reported, wanted to have) an agreement in place to crack open those vaults until recently. As a result, there’s tons of old stuff surfacing from Neil Young 25 years into the CD era. However, Time Fades Away is still out of print even after that, never pressed to CD and probably never will be because Neil doesn’t want it.

What Taylor is talking about, Jim, is fashionation rather than fascination, the act of enjoying something for purely style reasons rather than a love of the music itself. Personally, I don’t care either way, at least people are buying the music and that’s enormously refreshing. Perhaps in the owning of the records on vinyl, those fashionistas will someday develop an appreciation of what they have in their hands beyond the value of style points.

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 07:10:41 +0000

I have to disagree with the above replyer stating that there is a kind of pretension to vinyl collecting. Sometimes it is the only way to get an artist’s recorded work _at all_. I would gladly buy the CD versions of certian LPs in my collection if the pigopolist labels would open their vaults once in a while.

By: Taylor

Taylor — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 16:12:43 +0000

sadly, I think there’s also a kind of pretension in it. owning and listening to things on vinyl has become the equivalent of listening to bands before they get big, etc. it’s a whole new exercise of showing the extents of your music nerd-dom and music snobbery. though, personally, i love records for how they can completely change the sound and listening experience of an album. some songs sound better on record, some sound better on cd. it’s one of the kinds of versatility of sound that i love.