OMG, People Buy Records? Vinyl In The News Thread

i swear the new york times runs this SAME story every 6 months. they just change some names. it's just like their: HEY, beer isn't just Budweiser anymore, don't ya know! and that old chestnut: HEY, chocolate/hot dogs/hamburgers/something else stupid that only children used to eat isn't just for kids anymore, now its fancy and stuff!

oh well, what are you gonna do. here's today's version:

Returning to Music’s Old Home
By Michael Wilson

Those flat, round, black things with the hole in the middle that your father keeps stacked in his man cave — they’re called vinyl records. Back in the day, when the “desktop computer” was a calculator and downloading was something dump trucks did, people played music on records.

But here’s the thing: the day is back. Record-store owners say vinyl sales are up, and classic albums are being reissued. And the place to go for records new and old is still the East Village, an accessible place served by the 6 train at Astor Place and other lines. Nostalgia and cutting-edge share space at these stores, often in the basement, both literally and in price.

Oh my god I hate these fucking stories

oh and there is a map of record stores and a slideshow but i can't seem to get it online right now.

the comments are good too:

I was someone who grew up with vinyl. The upside to the format was that there often was magic in the album cover graphics and photo. There was so much that could be conveyed in that 12″ x 12″ frame.

However, let’s be serious: the quality was sub-par and if you didn’t store the album correctly, it warped and was ruined.

If you like the idea of playing album ’sides’ here’s a thought: just let your CD play for 6 songs, take a 1 minute pause to recreate the concept of ‘flipping’ an album, then continue on.

Why anyone would want to buy new or re-issued music on vinyl is beyond me.

— Ken Douglas

why do they ALWAYS have to start with: HEY REMEMBER THOSE BIG ROUND THINGS WITH THE HOLE IN THE MIDDLE?

is it, like, a law or something.

i hate amy:

i find it very interesting how generations tend to repeat history. it used to be that each decade was known for something, known for a certain style or particular music, and that was very much true for the 50’s 60’s 70’s 80’s and even the 90’s but ever since the millenium nothing truly original has surfaced. on the contrary from the years2000-2010 the decade will most likely be remembered as the years that “brought it back”. almost anything from clothes sneakers and music has resurfaced bringing us back to a time which half this generation missed. within the last few years ive heard my grandmother say on numerous occasions “i remember when i used to listen to this as a little girl” and other things like that. so basically it comes to no surprise to me that records are coming back in style. besides everything is accepted in the village, theres no better place to find a wide variety of arts and style than the east village, which fortunately is a nice short 6 train ride away. :)

— amy

Jerrod Ripshire, 26, says that vinyl records "just sound better." But it's not just 20-something hipsters indulging in a love of all things retro. In the age of iTunes, some of the most popular bands now release their latest albums on vinyl.

these stories are just made for those people i come across occasionally who, when i casually mention buying a record, incredulously ask, "OMG THEY STILL MAKE RECORDS? LOL!"

okay, here's the slideshow:

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/10/11/nyregion/20091011_stops_ss_index.html

Scott, can you link to the entire article? All I find on line are those graphs you copied above (searched Wilson's name and everything), and in Texas we don't get a Metro Section in our copy of the Sunday Times.

i can't get it online either. maybe that's all there is? i didn't actually buy the paper today. my dad emailed me about the story.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/nyregion/11stop.html

meanwhile, i missed this story and its actually good:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/arts/music/30private.html

i like ben sisario.

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2009/sep/28/record-store-retains-relevance-digital-age/
http://www.montanakaimin.com/index.php/news/news_article/vinyl_making_a_comeback/3990
http://www.keloland.com/News/NewsDetail6376.cfm?Id=90653
http://www.ocweekly.com/2009-10-01/music/the-burger-records-sean-bohrman-lee-rickard-brian-flores/
http://www.tribstar.com/entertainment/local_story_274215950.html
http://www.reporterherald.com/news_story.asp?ID=25044

How long do you all think this "resurgence" will last for?

“You’re going to buy this,” he says pointing to the CD that he’d just stuck into the store’s player a few moments earlier. “Relatively Clean Rivers. You don’t know it, and it rules.”

Say what? Relatively Clean Rivers? Is that a band or a half-hearted EPA slogan? Surely Mr. Pass will take a pass.

But no, he throws his debit card on the counter without hesitation.

“Rock on man,” he says. “That’s exactly what I was looking for.”

And then he’s off, to hit the road, no more than two minutes after he arrived.

“You just witnessed a transcendental Love Garden moment,” Corcoran said to a visitor. “Those are our favorite moments, when somebody just comes in and says ‘help me.’ He didn’t have to spend an hour researching it on the Internet, and he wouldn’t have found it anyway.”

pretty sure relatively clean rives is pretty easy to find via google.

but still, that guy is a lot cooler than Best Buy employee (in a different article.)

tsk, promoting radioactive/phoenix releases is bad juju

on the other hand, that's a boss LP

the "amy" comment above makes me want to slit my wrists

y it’s in my apartment. They said, ‘Can we come over?’ I said sure.” Mr. Heaps, 45, still sounds bitter about the demise of his store. “Jammyland ruined me,” he said. “I gave it 16 years of my life. It ruined two marriages. I have nothing to show for it.”

:-(

i just to enjoy shopping there.

Some terrible memes associated with these articles: cds are cold, sterile, soulless objects, the crackle of a well-worn record is what makes it so relatable & loved, etc.

I'm gonna start running a service where for a small fee I can lovingly add some scratches to your pristine records. Maybe sprinkle some dust on there.

just wait, give people time and the CD will become a fetish object as well.

"remember those mix CDs we used to make back in middle school?"

If everyone gets nostalgic for *skipping* cds then the cycle is complete.

"remember those mix CDs we used to make back in middle school?"

judging by the undergrads i teach, this sort of nostalgia is already with us.

it's like deja vu all over again:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/nyregion/07vinyl.html

wait, hmv, tower, and virgin are all gone? when did hmv close?

(in manhattan)

i sort of hate the vinyl revival. how all these nonrational justifications for liking vinyl become repeated and repeated as nostrums by sales reps. some of which, as chinavision posted above, is just ridiculous.

"i dunno, vinyl just has that certain... something. something that connects us back to the real things. to our youth. or if not to our youth, then to the real. yeah. it's like, big. you can see the pretty pictures. also it sounds real. and stuff. buy some more."

shoot me if i ever make those sort of arguments.

well, no, don't. but take me to task.

ok, as long as you dont ask me for my actual reasons

i think for me it kinda boils down to "a man needs a hobby" and mine just happens to be collecting records because i love music. vinyl over CD started as a practical thing tbh, cuz when i was a little punk rock lovin teenage kid i wanted to buy 7"s by local bands and shit cuz they were cheaper than CDs, or maybe even the only available product. i still find a lot of things I love on vinyl that are not available on CD, and also the affordability is major. go buy 6 great records for $25 or whatever vs two or three CDs--things like neil young albums, prince albums, stevie wonder albums, are so available and so cheap. it's great for poor youngsters.

classical records for a dime! cds ain't got nothin on that.

some days I wish I did vinyl instead of cds, but some days i don't

plus who wants to buy used CDs? they always look all cruddy and beat up and you feel like an idiot paying more than a dollar for one. six dollars for a used cd? gimme a break. sell it to me for 50 cents and i might buy it. i only buy CDs at thrift stores and only if they are in pristine condition. even salvation army is too pricey. $1.99 a cd. but every once in a while i pick up some good indian music or folk/blues/classical.

i can find mint/pristine classical vinyl that is FIFTY years old for a dollar, but the snoop dog cd you want to sell me at the cd shop looks like snoop took a crap on it and you want five bucks? yhgtbkm!

you can't keep vinyl in binders, makes it harder to steal iirc.

except those 45 binders i guess.

There was a feature on CBC (Canadian News) on vinyl resurgence. There was a lot of footage taken at the record store I frequent most, and I'm pretty sure I was there when they were filming, but didn't watch the feature long enough to see if I was there.

my momz sent me this article in the mail. seniors no what's up:

http://www.aarpmagazine.org/lifestyle/vinyl-records-back.html

But here's my theory: it's the unique imperfections of each vinyl record that make it irreplaceable. After enough plays, a record becomes a fingerprint of your listening experience. Just about everyone who owned the Beatles' White Album wore the thing down to a nub. Your copy, like mine, is a crackling mess through "Cry Baby Cry"—but then it becomes a mint-condition collector's item the moment that unlistenable jumble of sounds the Lads called "Revolution 9" fades in.

fightin' words!

your copy is an individual fingerprint of your unique listening experience and sounds the exact same as mine

they are like snowflakes

hahahahaha that is a totally LOL takedown of rev#9 though by AARP

"The cracks and the little imperfections that pop up seem to enhance the music. It's a way of experiencing music rather than just consuming it."

ffs will people stop saying this baloney

yeah, no one wants beat up records!

i need to get another copy of this, not enough snaps crackles or pops

the cracks and imperfections is why I buy 85% of my music on CD iirc

along with the rest of the world

cracks beat transients i guess

tbh when i started collecting records i would buy most of my records from dollar bins, and so there was always some pops and tics and stuff, but now i pretty much won't buy a record unless it's VG+ or better. i just upgraded a Scorces LP that i've had since college but one night gouged up one side of it. So i re-bought it a few weeks back despite the $20 pricetag; it's a nice record and I'm glad to be able to listen to it w/o that tic every revolution. (revolutionary tic?)

haha I remember you mentioning that on some other thread.

it's always nice to upgrade.

thank you upgraders for throwing away perfectly listenable copies of led zep II and bitches brew in front of ace hardware.

no prob

the problem i have with the annoying pop/crackle romantics is they honestly believe that ALL records sound like that to some degree. that their old beat up copies of tapestry or blue were made that way. cuz that's what they've heard for so long. which is just weird. don't they have ANY memory of buying a new record and playing it for the first time?

i guess i can understand people liking surface crackle somewhat, but pops drive me INSANE

maybe people are just thinking of all the old tv shows and movies when someone puts on a victrola and they hear that crazy victrola noise. even i get a little romantic/nostalgic when i hear some barely audible recording from the turn of the century. or even when i play a 78 in good shape from the 20's. like its coming from another world. but modern records, that's different.

it's kind of like the auditory equivalent of a yule log video

the tunes you love, plus a bonus of psychosomatic crispy ticks and buzz

If the record isn't particularly beaten up, how much crackling can be removed by cleaning?
I have a discwasher bottle + brush thingy but haven't cleaned a record in years.

i use them pretty regularly, but i guess mostly it's cleaning new acquisitions -- the expedit keeps them pretty dustless...

If the record isn't particularly beaten up, how much crackling can be removed by cleaning?

heaps. i have an RCM but i've taken many discs up a listening grade or two with a decent clean

a record with no crackle is a genuinely beautiful thing

what i mean is the crackle all due to accumulated filth? i get the feeling that distortion from having worn down the grooves wouldn't present so much as crackle than muddiness.

crackle is mostly dust and grot yeah, sometimes it can be pressing imperfections or due to needle damage (as opposed to play wear)

listening to a blue note lonnie smith record last night - late 60's deep groove heavy vinyl not a liberty pressing - it had NO surface noise whatsoever. it had never been played. it has the deepest fattest sound you can imagine. you could test a fancy stereo with it. the difference between that copy and a vg or even a decent vg+ copy? WORLDS! i could weep hearing a record like that. i bought something like 3500 records from a guy and 85% had never been played. so my jaw has been dropping on a daily basis for almost 2 weeks. seriously clean vinyl that has resisted the elements over many years that can still sound that amazing? over 40 years in a box in sheds and basements...i respect these things. they've got super powers. to mythologize a poorly kept/maintained/handled record is a slur to the technology. these things were built to last with even a minimum amount of care.

crackle just comes from somewhere else. unless it's like serious noise, it is in a different part of the room or a different part of your ears, sonically, than the music is, ordinarily. it isn't on top of it obscuring things.

I had a good friend for whom I taped a copy of my dad's American Beauty. When she upgraded it to CD, she was disappointed by the listening experience b/c she was used to crackling on certain places (I had also put the wrong side first, fucking up the track order). I can see how this might not translate for all albums though.

Those of us who fell for the Great Lie will never fully recover. My distraught friend from the used-record store is right: we'll spend the rest of our days trying to re-create our old collections, Ancient Mariners roaming the earth, our MP3 players slung about our necks like albatrosses.

But there will be the inevitable reunions with long-lost LP friends, the rush of anticipation when the needle hits that groove, and the exquisite moment when the music plays, warm and full, punctuated with the pops and crackles of passing time.

love this guy

I just forked over a lot of money for a turntable and am not sorry. When the sun goes down, I really enjoy putting a record on while I sit in another room and read. It's nice to have a break from digital music. Not for everyone, I know.

We gave my 90-something grandmother one of those "retro" stereos with turntable and cassette deck. She said she wished she still had her old records and my mom suggested I bring some of my easy listening LPs over some day so we could listen to them. She listens to cassettes mostly.

Actually quite interesting piece on the BBC site about the guy who ran Beanos in Croydon :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8507703.stm

NPR's All Things Considered, today:

"Vinyl is the real deal," White says. "I've always felt like, until you buy the vinyl record, you don't really own the album. And it's not just me or a little pet thing or some kind of retro romantic thing from the past. It is still alive. United Pressing Plant is two or three blocks away from here, and they're pressing up millions of copies of vinyl every year. And people are still buying them in droves."

United has manufactured records for Motown and Music Row since it opened in 1962. These days, the old pressing machines are going full tilt. Third Man's director of production, Ben Blackwell, says he's back and forth to United on a daily basis as they collaborate on new color schemes for their limited-edition releases. United workers slice hockey-puck-shaped ingots of colored vinyl in two or three pieces and then reassemble them by hand.

"And then that puck with the labels attached is fed into the actual record press, and approximately 20,000 pounds of steam pressure compresses that puck between two metal plates, which are the negative images of your actual record grooves, so when you have a record that has grooves, these pressing plates have ridges," Blackwell says. "It really is mystifying and captivating, too. It's almost like you feel something in the room while it's happening."

would he say the same thing about a plant that manufactured coasters? because it's the same fucking thing.

god i'm tired of romance-of-vinyl crap. just get over yourselves.

There'll be new Fred Dibnah's soon!

All marving about steam driven record pressing plants...

So, how are CD's selling now compared to vinyl? On the website of a major record store here they list they're top 10 sellers of the month with a note that all things listed are vinyl unless otherwise noted (and there are no notes otherwise). When exactly did vinyl start overtaking CD's?

still can't play vinyl in cars iirc

old_timey_car_with_turntable.jpg

they should just start making cds the size of laserdiscs. that would be awesome.

STEVE INSKEEP, host:

And today's last word in business marks the birthday of a music technology that was supposed to die. Cassettes, compact discs and MP3 players were all supposed to kill it off.

RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

But the LP, the long-playing vinyl record, is still around - making something of a comeback, in fact. Artists are releasing new songs on a format that first debuted 62 years ago today.

INSKEEP: It took years of effort to overcome technical difficulties like grooves that were too wide and poor audio fidelity. But in 1948, Columbia Records finally introduced the microgroove long-play vinyl record, which could play an incredible 22 minutes of music on each side.

MONTAGNE: And according to Wired magazine, the first released was a Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E Minor with Bruno Walter conducting the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of New York.

And that's the business news on MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. I hear some music coming up there, Steve. I'm Renee Montagne.

INSKEEP: And I'm Steve Inskeep.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUG1hXq7GHU

I NEED THAT RECORD! THE DEATH (OR POSSIBLE SURVIVAL) OF THE INDEPENDENT RECORD STORE

OK

http://www.cnn.com/2010/IREPORT/08/11/vinyl.irpt/?hpt=C2

"Alice says that vinyl has soul and that its imperfect sound is like 'a performance every time it's played. It's never quite the same twice.'"

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/fashion/23Gimlet.html

ha. i met the guy on the left of that photo last time i was in ny

haha! yeah I know him too.

a Dazzle Ships regular

guy in center with the glasses and beard is my default mental image of the every-ilxor

We should also start a thread that we bump every time a new york writer hedges his/her reporting on a trend with some variation on "By now it's obvious that x is making a comeback/is popular"

see also "It's almost a cliche to point out that..."

I don't see that as hedging so much as apologizing for being late on something that's been done to death

or a politer way of saying "hey don't look at me, someone assigned me this dumb topic"

Or alternatively "Yeah, I know this is lame. I write for the New York Times. They pay my bills. It's not me."

a Dazzle Ships regular
― dmr, Thursday, September 23, 2010 3:29 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ya, met him w/jeremy. have you been to the last few? my bff from hs/college is now the third member

guy in center with the glasses and beard is my default mental image of the every-ilxor

ilxor-looking dudes

have you been to the last few?

nah I haven't made it over there yet since they started back up, baby at home and all

that's what i figured

The novel spin that this story seems to be offering is that record buyers are locavores? I mean, I don't expect much more from the NYT styles section... and at least the writer knew that there was ALSO a Long Island record fair happening at the same time, which, if it was anything like the one I went into Chicago last weekend (and most record fairs I've been too) was probably NOT the set of assorted weirdos that the styles section would ever want to touch. Not much of point here except that this article seems, a la Kids Are Alright, more about strategically expanding what "locavore" means as consumer/style category.

... and that record buying/selling as "style" is just so irritating. Whatever, impotent rage, I know.

ok, so wtf does 'locavore' (which I thought meant you eat local produce) have to do w/ records? or does it now mean shopping locally, so anyone who doesn't go to a chain store a locavore now? are locavores retrosexual? i is confused

i was at the l.i. one, fwiw. picked out six $1 country records. guy said they're seven-for-five, so if i pick out another one it'd only be $5. i was, like, can we make believe I picked out another one? he was, like, ok.

it was pretty same-old, though. shoulda gone to the brooklyn one. my luck i would have wound up in the nytimes though, so just as well.

The guys in the NYT couldn't stay long, they had to get back to their home charcuteries and pick up cupcake making supplies for their gf's microfinanced online bakery.

A minor twist on a theme

disappointed that it wasn't j4mes plumm3r they busted

investors view rarities by The Beatles and Queen as more stable assets than risky market ventures.

lede to new yorker blurb on wfmu record fair:

Justin Timberlake recently told a German newspaper that he prefers vinyl
to digital music, and he is not the only one.

awesome

lol

justin timberlake, you are a bro.

justin timbrolake

While catching up on my European Timberlake news digest, I came across something that would fundamentally change teh way i consumed music

keep an eye on this space in january for an interview/photo-shoot that SF's 7x7 magazine did with ILX regular "69" about his switch from downloading/digital music to records, and about the general merits of the medium...

"well, they're big."

"having a bunch of records at your apartment is sure to get girls."

"i like the way they sound. you know, it's like, realer."

hahaha i actually did say that it was cool that they are big

Sad news: ILXor's Dunedin shop to close http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/134885/music-over-trader

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs583.ash2/150522_822794650897_13600337_45874794_1534544_n.jpg

sexy!

hey i know that guy

R.I.P. Vinyl records?

I love Vinyl. I hope it doesn’t go away… and if it does I hope it does only after I own the next Radiohead record on 180 gram.

Hence4th December 2, 2010 at 6:32 pm Reply

hahaha

nice! what's the record by your head?

nerve city's sleepwalker 12" -- def one of my favorite non-indie underground "punk" bands of the past few years

cool! can we read it somewhere?

i looked on the 7x7 website and it wasn't up there yet

yeah, just in print so far -- i emailed the reporter to get some copies!

I saw Alan Zweig's "Vinyl" last night - it starts out being kinda what you expect (LOL record nerds), but ends up being a lot more. Worth watching IMO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW9NWHvv8fc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3uRA2Bxg0s&feature=related

Vinyl has a "soul" cd just cant replace.

CoolDudeClem 2 months ago

orly? zzzzzzzzzz

never even heard of this place. and it still has buried treasure in it? in brooklyn? seems hard to believe, but what do i know?

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/sked-for-sunday-feb-27-a-beloved-record-store-closes-among-last-in-a-dying-breed/

"This strikes me ambivalently, with three major valences (or vectors). It’s sad, that a long-established, well-liked, family business is closing down. That always strikes me as unfortunate, unlike when a Rite Aid or Starbucks closes.

However, (valence #2), I’m happy for Mr. Long in that he can retire honorably, years after most people do, and know that he accomplished something worthwhile with his business, providing vinyl excellence to a neighborhood for decades.

Lastly, (valence #3, stoic resignation) there’s a grim inevitability about this, as vinyl is an extremely outmoded recording form. First there was vinyl (thanks to Edison I think), then tape cassettes, then CD’s, and now MP3’s, fully interchangable digital recordings. Any teenager these days would figure buying records or tapes is lunacy, because they have nothing to play them on.

So I think we’re hitting the stage in between used record stores and vinyl being seen only in antique stores (which may hit in about a decade), and that’s simply the way it goes, like nobody owns a gramophone these days (that big horn thing over the record player). Mr. Long should feel proud to have done well, in a minor role in the end of an era.
— Dan Stackhouse"

so into comments like these

yeah, echoing Scott, kinda hard to believe there would be some remaining outpost -- especially in BK -- where a vet collector could score 1000 45s for $600 of "stuff he'd never seen before".

also woah, from one of the last of those comments: "despite a resurgance, technics has discontinued the industry standard 1200 turntable for the DJ subsection of the vinyl collector market."

Is this actually true? Old news? I hadn't heard that before. but maybe I did and I forgot.

i'm thinking this might actually be of use? instead of me checking all the sites before i buy. and how does it know rarity?

http://www.cratekings.com/icrates-iphone-app-the-perfect-digging-companion

also, u can turn yourself or a loved one into a record when they die. might have to change my plan to either be shot into space or turned into a precious jewel

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-08/27/and-vinyly

turned into a record and the record is shot into space

Is this actually true? Old news? I hadn't heard that before. but maybe I did and I forgot.

apparently true, wow. had not heard that.

http://www.thelmagazine.com/TheMeasure/archives/2010/10/29/industry-standard-turntable-technics-sl-1200-discontinued-by-panasonic

yeah im sure someone posted abt that on ilm? or maybe i saw it somewhere else. anyway, v sad news.

don't think this one got posted

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2011-02-25-vinyl25_ST_N.htm

it's the never ending story of the decade!

According to recent Nielsen SoundScan numbers, vinyl was the fastest-growing musical format in 2010, with 2.8 million units sold, the format's best year since SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991.

now this is actually newsworthy in my opinion. that whole article was just like every other one, but a little better researched.

even more!

http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2011/03/02/134204727/slow-and-steady-vinyl-survives?sc=fb&cc=fp

it's an epidemic...

http://www.bostonherald.com/entertainment/arts_culture/view/20110322young_people_with_old_souls_prefer_records_to_cds/srvc=home&position=recent

THEY HAVE OLD DUSTY CRACKLY SOULS!

that was the hardest article to read and not vom everywhere.

"Before I had the vinyls": sounds like he has the gout or something.

omg, why was it 2 pages?

http://www.news-leader.com/article/20110322/NEWS01/103220346/1007/Man-accused-stabbing-record-shop-employee

http://lifeinc.today.com/_news/2011/03/29/6369090-why-you-shouldnt-plan-on-working-at-a-record-store-or-newspaper

When was the last time you were in a record store? Yeah, we can’t remember either (maybe it was December, but that was to buy concert tickets).

Market research firm IBISWorld.com analyzed its database of 700 industries and came up with 10 that, if not dead, are circling the drain.

They are, in order of most revenue earned in 2010 to least:

1. Wired communications carriers
2. Mills
3. Newspaper publishing
4. Apparel manufacturing
5. DVD, game and video rents
6. Manufactured home dealers
7. Video postproduction services
8. Record stores
9. Photofinishing
10. Formal wear and costume rental

While some aren’t surprising (Hello Blockbuster! How are those late fees treating you?), it does give an interesting glance into where we may be as a country. Are we slobs that never dress up anymore? And given the housing market, you’d think a mobile home might be an attractive option due to its affordability.

Which one of these do you still patronize?

So get out there and buy some records, rent a gorilla suit, take some barley down to the stone mill...

Surely the power of water ans steam and the cuteness of old mills could be harnessed to press records?

OMG think you're on to something. To hell with lathe cuts!

So much wrong in here: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/music/news/article.cfm?c_id=264&objectid=10717712 Music is dead btw

that made so little sense i'm not sure i even read it

What a weird and unreadable style that's written in.

Wow, NZ news is all about the 'vinyl is back' at the moment:http://www.rotoruadailypost.co.nz/have-your-say/news/nostalgia-trip-to-the-days-of-vinyl/3947756/

haha the comments on that NZ Herald article are merciless

A Mamaku man says vinyl records are still worth buying - they have a better sound and bring back nostalgia.

Craig Roberts bought three records at the Rotorua Record Fair at Ngongotaha Hall yesterday.

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lgbj6dMOzl1qf8yek.gif

r.i.p.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/40-sad-portraits-of-closed-record-stores

except for tower and virgin kinda.

remember moving to philly in the late 80's and thinking how cool it was that there was the tower on south street and over the years slowly watching it turn into a dark pit to be avoided.

that's for sure! also, let's not forget the awesome 3rd Street Jazz.

spent many an hour in 3rd street. my friend john who worked at 3rd street for years moved near me recently! hadn't seen him in a long time.

i wonder if it's the same John i remember...lived around the corner from me in Fitler Square.

A N Y H O O

http://www.icaboston.org/custom-html/index?item_id=19199001

not only is vinyl in the news, people make ART WITH IT!

fuck a vinyl metaphor.

or maybe not. i don't even know anymore.

fuck a baby boomer though. kill their pony-tailed asses. fucking grill me about records they haven't listened to in 25 years. for hours. idiots. "oh i had all these oh i had as much as you've got in your store even more than that can you still find records who buys them blah blah blah" fuck you old man. yer either on the bus or off the bus. get out!

AIN'T GOT TIME FOR YOUR SAD NOSTALGIA OLD MAN OR YOUR SMIRKY FUCKING INSINUATIONS THAT I'M AN IDIOT FOR SELLING RECORDS OR YOUR CONSTANT NATTERING ABOUT HOW I'M TOO YOUNG TO REMEMBER ANYTHING THAT EVER HAPPENED EVER I GET IT YOU WERE THERE WOULD YOU PLEASE GO THE FUCK BACK THERE.

government really fucking slipped up by not going after these assholes and shipping them to the big muddy.

hahahha. god skot, how do you think it is for me?? i get "you weren't even born when i saw this band!?!?!!" all the time.

i love it when ss turns into the lex.

ha! good thing i'll never be able to grow a pony tail. zeppelin in '72. tellin' you guys.

http://www.amazon.com/Record-Collecting-Girls-Unleashing-Inner/dp/0547502230/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1303250156&sr=8-1

lolz. womyn'z be buying vinylz too

"In Record Collecting for Girls Courtney Smith takes the mic and explores what music can tell women about men"

um, okay...

girl tip books probably still sell well. what do i know?

need some actual ilx girlz to weigh in here...

omg, not ACTUALLY weigh in, i know the gals are sensitive about their weight! lol!

years ago i told myself i would try to marry the first hardcore female record collector i met. i never really met any. i settled for a music lover who started radio stations in her spare time.

"And who is going to tell you what you can learn from your crush’s music collection? (If he’s an overzealous Smith’s fan, send him packing.)"

cuz he's probably.....gay

i was always looking for a girl who could enhance my record collection, not merely copy it

hmmm, okay, but how do we get the women of ilx to come to this board and then click on this thread? this is a puzzle...

i could change the thread title to something about cats or james franco, i guess.

oh well maybe the two or three laydeez who DO post on ilv will share their thoughts.

i just got home minutes ago from buying some records and I am female, but I'm pretty sure I have nothing to add to the discussion here.

i bought

OST Cat People (Moroder!)
OST Thief (Tangerine Dream!)
Salsa Boricua de Chicago comp (numero group, don't judge)
Best of Michi Sarmiento (soundways, again, where else am I going to get this stuff on vinyl?!)

Spent too much, but hey that's what we women do amirite

i was typing that as you were summoning the ladys of ilx

i just sold records to a very nice young woman. she wanted david bromberg records. and the orson welles war of the world radio broadcast. and the point by harry niiiiiiilllllllson.

"numero group, don't judge"

everyone loves numero group! or i do anyway. how can you not love them?

hey, i dunno! i love them too -- esp the cult cargo series, and esp anything salsa related -- i know that some people are crazy/snobby about it for some reason, but i guess it's like "hey a shelf-ful of numero releases doesn't make you a RECORD COLLECTOR, maaaan" thing? i dunno. either way, i am excited about this set. it's really beautiful, and the book is going to be so much fun to read as someone who lives in chicago, loves caribbean salsa, and knows/works with a bunch of clemente grads whose grandparents might have been involved in this scene. somewhere i posted a scan of a clemente yearbook i have stored away somewhere in my piles of crap.

michi sarmiento was sizzlin btw

"because girls get their hearts broken and make mix tapes about it, too."
lol
i think this book is a fine idea, sure
i'm already getting kind of tired of "nerd" being the new "hipster" tho

there was a time when nerd meant something, and we liked it

well, to be honest, i often pass on cool new reissues cuz i'm thrifty and i usually would rather get 5 or 10 old records for the price of one new reissue or new release. most of the numero stuff i have i got in trade when i lived on marthas vineyard. i rarely buy new stuff. i did get the recent german oak reissue and i did recently buy the deep wound comp on vinyl. some stuff is just essential to have for me.

x-post

another glorious lady of ilx heard from!

i love when women shop in my store. i basically am all for more women making music and buying music and being obsessed by music cuz i dig women a lot. i prefer them in most cases to men.

http://www.317x.com/albums/j/jonahjones2/enlargement.jpg

haha yeah i was also about to say that the only reason i didn't shop in your store when there was because of tight schedule - i didn't want to get all absorbed in looking at records and not get to actually chat with you for a bit! another time obv!
xp
hahaaa awesome

more girls and vinyl for you

oh yeah no problem. i'm just glad you stopped by. it was nice to finally meet you in person. and i met jbr in person too this year! two of my very fave womynz.

x-post

:)

i love when women shop in my store. i basically am all for more women making music and buying music and being obsessed by music cuz i dig women a lot. i prefer them in most cases to men.

― scott seward, Saturday, April 23, 2011 9:31 PM (Yesterday) [IP: 74.106.78.206] Bookmark

otm

yeah, men suck

sorry i left early herb i can't drink that many beers that early. had to go home and take a nap. plus, all that food...oof.

well you know i'm not "sorry" but it was nice to hang.

haha Lauren posted that Record Collecting for Girls book on Facebook with the caption MAKE HULK MAD

also check out the Tags Customers Associated With This Product for bonus lolz

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2011/04/new_app_vinyllove_makes_your_i.php

So dorky. And people of the world: no one really listens to vinyl because they like the clicks and pops. That shit's annoying.

the click and pop thing is one of my real hates about these articles. but i HAVE heard people say that they like this about vinyl. even on ilm. drives me up a wall.

number of times someone has said to me "i hear vinyl is coming back" in my store: 43939334484 times.

your surly record store guy stock answer should be: "i hear my fist in your face is coming back, too!"

it's kind of amazing that in 2011 vinyl is still HANDS DOWN better at letting you choose where in the song to begin listening than any music player, be it CD or iTunes or your iPod or what have you. (i believe this is sometimes called "random access".)

my wife had a modest collection of 200 records when i first met her (now it's grown to 210 imo!) and she sort of made me realize or at least notice that there are probably at least as many women as men in my circle who own a decent number of records but they tend to not talk about it, they just have them. it's the whole dude collector mentality and the drive to discuss our libraries.

the tags on that courtney smith book:

Tags Customers Associate with This Product (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
offensive(16)
clueless(14)
dumb(14)
condescending(13)
sexist(13)
disgusting(11)
gross(10)
seriously(9)
insulting(6)
asinine(3)
this got published(3)
no(2)
oblivious(2)
worthless(2)
wtf(2)
lame(1)

^^here comes the poll!

seriously (9)

the tags on that courtney smith book

no(2)

^^pretty cold

that was my vote!

i can dig the nostalgic feeling of clicks and pops, it's like a warm blanket in front of a crackling fire.

but yeah, seriously, i've been on a cleaning binge lately after getting a bunch of free moldy records and have found that unless the records is truly scratched, most of the noise is dirt and grime and can be cleaned right away. since then, i've been turning shit into gold and rediscovering old cool records that were almost unlistenable but I kept around cuz they were so awesome. the bass & drums immediately pop out, even scratched records sound better in between the clicks. i use worn t-shirt rags, water & iso alcohol mix, wipe, dry

guys! Mavericks are defying the digital age!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/apr/24/mavericks-defying-digital-age

Here's an app that lets you have the magic of 'vinyls' without all that annoying fuss and dirt!

http://gizmodo.com/#!5792791/vinyllove-for-ipad-re+creates-that-warm-vinyl-record-sound-for-your-mp3s

okay i admit i'm laughing that the woman artist in that guardian article has exactly 200 records!

and i will also admit that as soon as i see that picture of her with records scattered all over the floor and not in sleeves it reinforces my paranoid sexist fear that maria will not handle my records properly when she's at home and i'm not there. i'm horrible...

ugh i know! that picture is a promo-shot tragedy

but then i don't have plastic sleeves for most of my records (i do not have 200 records or anything tho) so i guess i am a heathen too

no i just meant paper sleeves. i hate seeing naked records on the floor in pictures.

oh i just mean the ones that go over the cardboard part! (i was being lolsarcastic on the internet)

naked records on the floor in pictures
disgusting (11)

hahaa

My performance, Wind-Up, involves gramophone turntables and 78rpm records. I place electrical tape on the records to create an additional tactile layer. This creates unexpected percussive discordances, harmonies and locked grooves.

I'm always bewildered by the extraordinary sounds within these 80-year-old records.

she's like a li'l Christian Marclay

savagery.

I DON'T SEE HOW ANY OF THAT IS UNEXPECTED CUZ HEY LOOK YER PUTTING TAPE ON THE PLAYING SURFACE OF THE FUCKING RECORD.

it's like fish with chocolate-cheese sauce

mmmmmm "unexpected"

sometimes i like to melt up a couple of records and spread the resultant mess onto an intact record to create percussive discordances.

^^can i make this the new borad description

What about all the flooring fans?

byron c. famous owner of yodspace came in the store today and told me that he really liked my record paper that i wrote for the conference in la. that made me feel good. i thought he might dig it. he's my kinda guy. then he bought records. he's reading poetry tonight at the book mill with will oldham and being backed by ben chasney. how hip is that?

(kinda could pick his brain about records forever. how does he do it? its nuts. he remembers EVERYTHING. i can barely remember my phone number.)

that is v hip

that's an underworld triple threat right there.

people not buying records

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/40-sad-portraits-of-closed-record-stores

i've spent plenty of time in at least 4 or 5 of those stores

i posted that on here two weeks ago but i still love you.

ha. that's cool. i posted the same link about the ipad app that makes your mp3s sound like vinyl that sonofstan posted a day before him. no biggie. i've only got enough room in my brain to remember records and nothing else

what is your wife's birthday???!

i posted the same link about the ipad app that makes your mp3s sound like vinyl that sonofstan posted a day before him. no biggie.

So you did. oops. Can I plead the same excuse?

all is forgiven

http://i775.photobucket.com/albums/yy38/harveycanal/JudyBlume.jpg

wld read

Judy blume is on the second raincoats record right?

my pal mike!

http://mvgazette.com/article.php?30490

http://mvgazette.com/zoom.php?10624

aw! cuetest!

i spent so much time in that store. i had nowhere else to go on that island! good thing me and him hit it off so well. other than beth parker and her lovely husband and some of maria's family upisland, mike is one of the only people i miss on that rock.

he just seems to have that good-guy vibe to him!
and that sign is rulin

http://whoknew.news.yahoo.com/?nc&vid=26245521

http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/KF/2011/08/10/vinylprojection-525x373.jpg

via fmu twitter
presumably re: the above

that yahoo link is possibly the most shrill and grating way to receive facts about something, holy shit

i really hate the thing where the text zooming in is accompanied by a zooming in sound; the only thing worse is when the text does that flapping back and forth thing.

gotta put this here too, jesus this one really does have all the cliches possible

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2011/10/bjorks_biophilia_pushes_bounda.php

sarahel put this on another thread

I am acutely aware that everything I have just said is horrifying and aggravating to a great many people.

http://mvgazette.com/zoom.php?10624

Scott, i remember your MV store posts.. i always thought it was a crusty old timey collector store you frequented. i've only been to the island once in 1993 (a few years before he open his spot) but i distinctly remember as a teenager perusing a store with a wall of records in the ground floor and basement. edgartown too. is it still around or did this guy buy it and rebrand it? it was pretty close to the gingerbread illuminations houses.

there were some other stores that have since closed. one guy had lots of records. forget the name of it. i barely even remember going there years ago. but i think that was in vineyard haven. there were two cd stores - in oak buffs and vineyard haven - that closed when i was living there and i never went to them because they were so terrible. between mike's store and the two thrift stores and the dump store and estate sales, i did okay.

Soundscan May Only Be Counting 15% of Vinyl Sales...

http://a2.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/142/350cc97f75d84b28a0dac936092771a1/l.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tmydCn_59g&feature=player_embedded

waxidermy is sending scouts LOLOL

OMG people not only buy records, some of them are worth money!!$$$!!

http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/194247/dunedin-sound-vinyl-still-groove

bird dog is now worth money on vinyl?!

Oh yes! Pretty much all that Verlaines 'early' stuff goes for some quite crazy money

ching ching

I got a sealed Juvenilia for like eight bucks?

good score! The 30 year anniversary celebrations have really ramped up the interest in Flying Nun vinyl down here

http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2012/01/15/145119799/need-help-finding-a-local-record-store

http://newsok.com/article/3641185

Vinyl records, declared dead a quarter century ago, are making a comeback.

In an age when it's assumed compact discs will join the list of dead media, one-time vinyl record owners like J.D. M3rryweather are rebuilding collections. And the surge in interest is prompting music enthusiasts to recast themselves as record producers.

http://www.npr.org/2012/01/26/145918912/its-a-buyers-market-crate-digging-on-100-a-day?sc=fb&cc=fmp

tbh, i find this 'record collector as archaeologist' thing a bit tiring.
also, 5 records for $100 is not a bargain.

yeah, well, if you live in nyc i guess that is a bargain! what do i know.

sheesh, that was dumb. give me a hundred bucks around here and i will find you a nice haul of goodies.

"No, I'd be forced to revisit those mid-'90s days when, as a broke college student, I'd spend the two hours between leaving my summer internship and catching the 9:07 train to New Haven trying to find a $20 bargain."

"bargain"

"The recession has wreaked havoc on serious record collectors and the dealers who service them, from those who invested a precious fortune in major-label, early-'90s rap 12"s to those who thought there would always be a market for European sound library albums."

this isn't really true and where was i when people were paying a precious fortune for major label early 90's rap????

maybe he means the days when people were paying a precious fortune for out of print rap CDs.

i guess we just aren't "serious record collectors" like this guy is what do we know

also kinda lolling at his boxes of deep soul & funk 45s that he can't make his money back on--yo son, you overpaid!

yeah, that stuff is trash. throw it away.

i'm guessing he paid too much in general in the early 2000s or something.

i actually think its a good time to buy AND sell these days. physical storefronts are bumming, a lot of them anyway, but people are still buying a lot of records. hence, this thread.

and you know what kinds of records you can still make good money on? ALL KINDS OF RECORDS. 90's indie, punk and hardcore, psych, folk, classical, almost everything! doo wop and 50's and 60's teenpop continue their downward spiral.

promising development of the next 20 years? tons of dead baby boomers!

early 90's "random" rap - made famous by his "host" johan - prices up, up, and UP.

going to look at supposedly 50,000 records tomorrow..

that's a bunch.

http://waxidermy.com/bbs/images/smilies/10K.gif

50,000 records!!!

the guy used to work for CBS, i guess?

we'll see.

nice.

someone brought in a great stack of things yesterday! clean columbia late sixties promos.. joe byrd & the field hippes, jacob's creek, sagittarius, man, illinois speed press, a buncah weird things. i am getting into the solo record by BLAND SIMPSON, later of the Red Clay Ramblers. has that rural rock sound i go wild for.

got a nice clean copy of "my gryphon is gone"

wowee, those are nice things. i love that one illinois speed press album. forget which one. don't know jacob's creek. mmm, i love minty 60's columbia vinyl.

also, psych-wise, i see stuff i sold 5 or 10 years ago for 100+ going for 300 and 400 and i'm all like HUH!!?? druids of stonehenge going for 3oo or more? get out of town.

then there is the sealed phenomena. if we all only knew to buy pearl jam records in bulk in the 90's and never open them. they were in chain store bargain bins by the score.

and the u.k./u.s. collector price gap has never been greater. in my experience. just saw 1st press mcdonald and giles go for 300 bucks. granted, pink island pressings have gone thru the roof in recent times - jethro tull 1st pressings going for $$$$$$$$! - but still, 300 versus, what, 10 bucks for a u.s. copy? you never would have seen that 10 or 15 years ago.

i curse those pearl jam records, i remember seeing like 15 copies of binaural sitting there for 8 bucks a pop and thinking 'haha no one buys pearl jam vinyl anymore, do they?' well they sure do now, for $150+.

even that eddie vedder soundtrack to 'into the wild' from a couple years back was going for $200-300 on ebay (it's been reissued.) i guess the lesson is "buy pearl jam vinyl!"

"and never open it!"

not opening them is always a good idea. i did actually buy some dollar bin pearl jam in the 90's and sold them later unplayed for a tidy profit. that one with the crazy art postcards was everywhere unsold. it was actually a really cool package. don't know what it sounded like though.

all those neil young dead man soundtracks that nobody wanted i saw in philly stores back then...

my number one example is always paul's boutique. strawberries store in philly had dozens of them for a dollar apiece! i bought one...

Kate Bush's Aerial now sells for 150!! Waterloo had copies for 20.00 and I kept thinking I'll get eventually.

by not opening, are you talking about leaving the shrinkwrap on as well, because in my experience it eventually shrinks and warps the cover

a sealed record will be fine if its stored properly. its when they are in less than ideal conditions - moisture, extreme heat or cold, stacked in a box the wrong way for decades - that you have problems.

but, yeah, sealed is sealed. unopened.

its a risky thing to buy a 40+ year old sealed record. you have no idea where its been. could be completely warped. stuff from the 80s and 90's and beyond is usually fine.

ah, yeah was prob the fluxuating temperatures of my California apartments over the years

"Thus, you're still going to shell out $700+ for a first-press mono issue of The Beatle's iconic Revolver on Parlophone (you know, the one with the alternate mix of "Tomorrow Never Knows"?). But the next time you stumble upon a copy of Edgar Broughton Band's amazing yet cultish Wasa Wasa with a slightly stained cover, you'll probably find it offered for a price not seen since 1995."

recent price for a nice 1st press u.k. revolver - $110

recent price for a nice 1st press u.k. wasa wasa - $108

amazing yet cultish

that article is p corny but the guy who wrote it has put out a lotta good compilations over the years so I give him a pass

does kind of encapsulate a certain style of writing that made me stop buying Wax Poetics though

just saw 1st press mcdonald and giles go for 300 bucks

GTFO are you serious?

but still, 300 versus, what, 10 bucks for a u.s. copy?

think I paid 15 but ... yeah

Record store closing: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10784767

Record store opening: http://www.factmag.com/2012/02/06/how-to-open-an-independent-record-store/

CBS News video with interviews with Neil Young, the Civil Wars, others:

''For more than a half century, it's how we listened to music. Now it's back!''

forgot to post this here. talked about it on the ile craftsmanship thread. or wait the nyt quiddity thread...one of them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/19/technology/personaltech/how-to-enjoy-turntables-without-obsessing-over-them.html?_r=3&ref=music

He’s a new devotee of jazz and David Bowie, thanks to LPs. (For the youngsters, that stands for long playing, as in long-playing record; there were also small records called 45s).

The irony being that one of the ultimate markers of the lol old is that they don't understand that pretty much all the youngsters know basic vinyl terminology, if for no other reason than from song lyrics.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/31/technology/personaltech/the-secrets-of-a-high-quality-vinyl-record.html

“The swirly colored stuff is also not going to sound good, but the transparent color vinyl can,” he said. “They released Nirvana on 180-gram blue and it’s unbelievable.”

sigh

that mr. fremer guy's not always completely insufferable. as audiophiles go. at least he's into it.

...Mr. Fremer recommends Recordsbymail.com...

http://www.salon.com/2012/06/13/down_with_fascist_ipods/singleton/

Different tone to this but the comments are the usual ones.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/etienne_saint/ScreenShot2012-08-14at124237PM.png

Mom, Dad!!!

Weird Uncle Davey!!!

That looks almost exactly like the GE portable record player I had in my late childhood, and was handed down to me when my dad got a hi-fi. I had an earlier phonograph, an ancient one, but this one was STEREO! Only thing missing is the stack of pennies my dad taped to the back of the tonearm over the pivot point so there'd be less tracking force on the needle so the records would last longer.

Then click "like"!

back in the groove

Renton, who is 49, says the issue of sound quality is almost incidental. “I don’t even have a record player. But I am buying more and more vinyl. Go figure.”

they just try to drive me insane with the crackle part. fuck a crackle.

i also don't understand the "slow-moving virtues of vinyl". can you listen to songs faster on the internet? are there sped-up versions on the web? i understand people can have 5 million songs on their ipods, but they still have to take the time to listen to them.

sux to take 20 seconds to get off the couch and flip a record tho, u know it

if you have a big box of 45s and you are sitting in a chair by the turntable you can listen to a ton of music in a short amount of time. nothing slow about it!

my friend bruno told me a funny story about a period where he was only listening to his 45s cuz all of his LPs were still in the UK, and after that for a while whenever he would put an LP on he would reflexively stand up after each song.

xD

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443696604577647870908169992.html

vinyl's back...again!

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2013/01/22/vinyl-appreciation-at-a-new-high/1821601/

interesting nugget in there....the new jack white album sold 34,000 copies on vinyl! o_O

St Louis got in on this hot new trend earlier this month

http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/a-new-generation-discovers-vinyl/article_e04fdbc1-a9e9-5b7c-a3ac-733eb394763e.html

Sam Wolter, a freshman in college, returned home to Kirkwood for the holidays, determined to go back to school for his second semester with something he had left behind.

A record player.

“I missed it too much,” Wolter said, while sifting through albums at Vintage Vinyl in University City on a recent Sunday. “All my friends are bringing theirs, too.”

A record player? That plays vinyl records? A college student?

My god, that last one has so many misconceptions I don’t even know where to begin.

"vinyl is coming back -- even becoming popular with people who weren't alive when records were being made."

So people who died before 1890 are even on board! Very interesting.

the funny thing is, I saw that article because one of St Louis' better record stores posted it on Facebook with no irony

Which one?

Vintage Vinyl

(now I'll probably get zinged for calling them one of STL's better record stores, I haven't been there in years)

I guess they posted it cause they were quoted

Man, I have such good memories of being a dorky little teenager and going into Vintage Vinyl. I think they're still pretty alright, haven't gone in a while.

yeah I liked it too. nowadays if I'm ever in Missouri I usually only have time to hit one store and it's usually Euclid. or Record Exchange.

Subject: Vinyl Records
Date: Jan 24, 2013 3:29 PM
We saved article from yesterdays USA TODAY regarding Vinyl record sales- Vinyl up over last five years 5000%- CDs down 13%.FYI DAD

is that really true? I would love to see a Billboard weekly chart of vinyl sales.

LP/Vinyl Albums Sales(LP/Vinyl Records)

Title / Artist

Units Sold

1.

BLUNDERBUSSJACK WHITE

18,000

2.

EL CAMINOBLACK KEYS

17,600

3.

ABBEY ROADBEATLES

15,700

4.

BLOOM
BEACH HOUSE

14,100

5.

21ADELE

10,300

6.

PORT OF MORROWSHINS

9,600

7.

SIGH NO MOREMUMFORD & SONS

9,600

8.

BOYS & GIRLSALABAMA SHAKES

9,400

9.

FOR EMMA FOREVER AGOBON IVER

9,200

10.

BON IVERBON IVER

8,900

http://www.scoopmarketing.com/2012/07/the-nielsen-company-billboard-2012-mid-year-u-s-music-industry-report/

my dad doesn't actually know what he's talking about. but vinyl sales rise a little bit every year. a whopping two percent of sales last year.

UggGgHHharhghgh there's going to be a segment about the "resurgence of vinyl" tonight on NBC nightly news with Brian Williams

http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nightly-news/51013811/#51013811

Chuckled a little at the token indie nerd at United, dude looks like Paul Rudd.

oh man the first thing i see is my pal nina playing violin!!!! so cool. her and willy are both from MVI. she's amazing.

they just HAD to add some crackle to that album at the end!

why do they ALWAYS have to start with: HEY REMEMBER THOSE BIG ROUND THINGS WITH THE HOLE IN THE MIDDLE?

is it, like, a law or something.

― scott seward, Sunday, October 11, 2009 7:10 PM (3 years ago)

Still true, apparently!

In this case, "Yeah those rounds things with the grooves in them!" or something.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/has-the-vinyl-revival-gone-too-far,93610/

Finally, a (mild) backlash against the (mild) increase in vinyl sales!

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/queens-woman-seeking-buyer-large-vinyl-record-collection-article-1.1290208

that ridiculous article led me to this scott neuman clown's twitter feed which is equal parts hilarious and infuriating. that guy must be a gigantic fucking crook. please show me the two classical lps you appraised at 20k each, sir. how is "vinyl appraiser" even a viable occupation in 2013? he's pissed at stores for allegedly ripping off grandmas because he thought he'd cornered that market
himself.

"Our current fee is $20.00 for the first item of the appraisal and $5.00 for each additional item."

https://twitter.com/forevervinyl

Even if it were true, the chances that a classical record is worth money is that much rarer due to the piles of them the target reader likely has covered in mold in their basement/garage. Given that, it would be protocol for most people to offer not much more than 10 cents per clean copy as a blanket rule.

For $20, I'll happily look up your records on collectorsfrenzy.com and even cross reference with discogs for an extra $10.

record appraisal is going to be my new business, thanks

Looking at my proprietary vinyl appraising software, a laptop with forevervinyl.com decal stickers an equipped with the latest google databases, it looks like this record sold last year for $15, but I analyzed the description against your copy and it seems yours is not "MINT white label promo shrink RARE!!!!!!! CLASSIC ROCK T. REX KANSAS BEATLES PEARL JAM", therefore it is worth upwards of $5 at peak.

That'll be $20 please.

But once you find one of those $20,000 classical albums your appraisal fees are taken care of for literally months.

I took a phone call from someone looking to unload their neglected 70s and 80s vinyl for $$$ the other day when I was in the local shop.
Man, I would not want to have that conversation every day.

A group of ladies brought in a grip of crap another time. "Are Boz Scaggs records very common?" Sigh

Nothing against Boz, Boz is cool.

its' stuff like that that was really driving me batty toward the end of my record store tenure. i just can't handle having to crush peoples dreams every day.

haha! that's part of my job and honestly i'm kinda used to it/good at doing it gently.

I once had a moderately heartbreaking conversation w my mom about the value of her old blues project LPs.

sucky village voice actually bringing half a LOL:

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2013/04/vinyl_is_back.php

Do Kids Even Know What Records Are?
Pressed vinyl as a musical format is old. Children, on the other hand, are not old. What happens when these two things meet? Who cares, but write about it anyway

What's nuts is that I encounter people once a week it seems that are surprised people are buying vinyl records still. And that new bands are producing vinyl. So I guess these articles will be rewritten until that stops.

it will never stop

there's a great little record shop in knoxville, wild honey. the guy who runs the store is amazingly good at letting people down who bring in their crap vinyl to sell. he's mastered the art. it helps that he can point them toward the 2nd hand store down the road.

Just witnessed the dick manager at Academy annex do that today. Though doing that particular thing is not dickish.

the guy who runs the store is amazingly good at letting people down who bring in their crap vinyl to sell.

This is a difficult skill to master. I try to gently talk people down a little if they're hype up on $$$ INTERNET PRICES $$$, but thankfully I don't have to do the final heartbreaking bit.

part of his zen is that he says (in a much nicer and calming way), "wow, this is really cool.... i love this record.... looks like your (father/grandfather/mother/cousin/whatever) really liked it too. it looks like he played it a lot. that's the problem--everybody wants something really clean and unplayed, but most people played their good records a bunch. so it's kind of ironic."

usually at that point he gets knowing nods from the people who 5 minutes ago were hoping to get like $30 per record or something.

the folks at the amoeba buy counter use the same line every time across the board, "well you could have a yard sale..." which is about as zen as they get. generally speaking the amoeba buyers are not particularly zen and sometimes are a bit aggro.

I use the yard sale line. also tell people they can go around the corner to the salvation army and that their donation would be tax deductible.

I get to the point pretty quickly now. If its stuff I don't want I tell people point blank that I just can't sell it in my store. or I lie and say that I already have too much of whatever they have. which isn't always a lie. but I stress the MY STORE part. and tell them that other stores might want it or that they could try craigslist.

This one's not horrible. I like Kozinn when he writes about the Beatles.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/10/arts/music/vinyl-records-are-making-a-comeback.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

this one is actually worth reading! and is on the money.

http://thewire.co.uk/in-writing/essays/collateral-damage_numero-group-on-the-vinyl-bubble

the baseball card analogy is interesting, but as I think the article implies, the value of a record is more than just as a "collectible." So as long as you have reasonably priced, nicely packaged vinyl and an audience of people who believe the sound and tactile experience are preferable, you have a vinyl market. If the market is relying on people who think they're investing, then obviously that's not sustainable.

right and the bigger labels (and not so big) have been acting like big baseball card and big comic book. trying to gouge every last dime out of people while they can instead of just delivering affordable quality products. labels aren't making ANY money on compact discs so why not try and get the most money possible out of this new vinyl craze.

they're assholes basically.

but then we knew that already.

But the limited reissues of those super common Taj Mahal records are only $32.99!

I'm sure these companies believe if they knock the gimmickry incentives down even a notch than a huge portion of potential buyers will settle with digital downloads over the vinyl/download combo.

$12 jazz reissues are cool

baseball cards just really started to suck, i think a lot of people were turned off by the extreme rise and even more extreme falls in value post-upper deck/leaf. i remember when dave justice (lol) leaf rookies were worth $100 or something.

Actually putting the needle on the record instead of simply playing the download from from itunes is still novelty to a lot of buyers. And there is empty satisfaction in saying "I have the blue vinyl version!" but there is nagging guilt when you get the common black vinyl/non-numbered copy if you're that person that just shelves it anyway.

I have like 4 different Sammy Sosa rookie cards...

i remember thinking those steve avery and gregg jeffries cards were going to make me a wealthy man

I think the phenomenon is: Lots of fans want to buy music but buying digital files doesn't validate that satisfaction at all. So people buy all this vinyl because it feels good to own something and even CDs only exist to mine digital files. Then when it starts to feel silly to have all this shelved vinyl (too busy and otherwise not stimulating enough an activity to put the effort in playing) you need stronger incentives in the collectibility of the object as the focus.

I guess my input was a healthy mix of obvious/pathetic or something. For the record (ha) I wasn't necessarily describing myself.

that Wire piece is good, but isn't there a whiff of pot-calling-the-kettle-black? or have i missed something about Numero Group?

i raised that point on facebook and scott got mad at me.
they are good at keeping their catalog in print and in general their records are affordable, but they definitely do the "deluxe boxed set" thing and the "1000 copies on white vinyl" thing and i thought it was a bit in poor taste to call out other labels (major labels?) for doing the same thing. like that syl johnson boxed set came out and there was no way to get the records individually, which was a drag. they finally pressed a few of them up as single LPs a couple years later.

another minor point, though, is that its ok to call people out for doing something you yourself do. it doesnt nullify the criticism just because you too are guilty.

^^ i don't buy that. imo, "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything" is a good rule. especially when discussing people who work in the same industry you do.

(p.s. one of my favorite pastimes is talking shit but i try to reserve it for relatively private conversations, i don't write an article in a popular music magazine.)

SHRUUUUG good luck fighting internal contradiction and hypocrisy dude

both good points. it would have made the piece more genuine if they acknowledged the black-pot-calling, even just a little.

did you ever think that maybe they had NO idea the syl box would generate as much interest as it did? given the fact that 99% of what they put out is ignored by almost everyone on the planet?

and i never see the numero limited stuff you mention. is it just RSD stuff? easy to avoid. the majority of their catalog is easy to come by and VERY reasonable price-wise given how much effort they put into it all.

they set up a shop on RSD, right? and sell their stuff and other stuff. throwing rocks at gift horses if you ask me, ian.

at least they're fucking trying. WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE? - Bob Marley

hahaha, luv ya...

:(

oh stop...

still think you're hatin' on santa claus though.

i'm a jew!!!!!!!!!!

of COURSE i hate santa claus!!!

Andddd scene

my jewish wife thinks santa is mad creepy but not quite as creepy as a dead guy hanging off a wall.

numero have never been shy about expressing their opinions online (and in person) which is simultaneously part of their charm and totally aggravating, but i think they have a solid point here. i don't think they were saying NEVER DO LIMITED EDITIONS. i think the point was don't take 2 bruce springsteen songs from a regular old LP, throw them in a hastily designed picture sleeve, press up 3000 of them and call it a collectible, just because you KNOW that you can move all of them on RSD, not allow returns, and then have the customers and stores left holding the instantaneously worthless bag. or, you know, whatever the indie equivalent of that is...

the point, to me, is not that limited editions are bad. the point is that the creation of endless limited editions that have literally no value added content may ultimately result in the customer base for vinyl becoming disenchanted in the format as a whole. the major labels and many indies have been doing the vinyl equivalent of ambulance chasing, and flooding the market with shoddy product at premier prices because, for now, they can get away with it. the question is "for how long?" and "will they take the quality labels down with them?"

I gather that the labels are worried a huge chunk of the market barely has any intention of playing the record (except for novelty), and are mostly accessorizing with the vinyl as hip furniture but making their selections ultimately based on which download cards they can extract to actually listen to the music in practical for modern times settings like on the train/in the car/at work etc.

So they compensate by creating as much incentives for that chunk of the market that really is satisfied by merely owning the record much less playing it.

fremer didn't like that article at all. in the comments he says he regularly paid five bucks per record in 1968. i wonder what records he was buying. i remember the first time i had to pay more than 2.99 for a record was 1973. (in the interest of full disclosure it was jethro tull "passion play," for 3.33 at s. klein's, 'cause i wanted to hear it before the concert, which my buddies and i were seeing to celebrate my 15th birthday.)

http://www.analogplanet.com/content/stupidest-article-ever-written-about-vinyl

i just assume the vinyl bubble will burst soon enough (for all the reasons enumerated above) and i'm not sure i care. scott et al, if the bubble for new vinyl burst, could you still get by selling used stuff?

format fetishism--some version or another of which drives this phenomenon--has always struck me as silly. people who go on and on about the "warmer" sound of vinyl can take a walk as far as i'm concerned. i started buying vinyl in college because you could get a lot of stuff really cheap and a lot of stuff wasn't on CD. those are still good reasons to buy used vinyl. i've stopped spending money on music lately b/c i'm broke but before that i'd buy a lot of african stuff on LP because it just isn't on CD--or the CD versions have shitty transfers and are as hard to find as the vinyl anyway. buying new vinyl at a premium when there are other ways to buy music (as FLAC files, as CDs) seems silly to me. again, unless you find a copy for cheap. i'm probably going to purge my record collection by about 30–40% this summer. i need space more than i need records at this point.

which is to say that only care about the sustainability of the "vinyl revival" (spits) if it's the main reason the record shops i like to visit are staying open.

and as for speculation i freely admit to showing up on RSD early, buying some stupid deluxe box set edition of whatever, and flipping it on eBay almost immediately at a profit. most of these folks could have these very same products for list price if they just wait a few days. or they could go to a record store themselves. a fool and his money are soon parted. i spend a gazillion dollars (well, relative to my income) on records and CDs every year, almost all at local stores, and amortizing that by making a (usually fairly small) profit once a year doesn't seem egregious to me.

the hatred of "vinyl speculators" just seems like a displaced sense of anxiety about the pointlessness of all this RSD product in the first place.

i only sell old stuff. fuck a new vinyl. i did recently order some stuff from fat possum though. just for fun. townes van zandt, t rex reissues, black keys, jay reatard. their stuff is cheap wholesale. got a bunch of their burnside, t model ford, etc, though and that hasn't sold at all.

and a couple of xmases ago i did get a bunch of stuff from scorpio for the holiday season. VU, os mutantes, black sabbath, etc. just stuff that i thought would sell. did fine with that. though i still have, like, 30 sun ra reissues in my jazz section.

i might do another scorpio order. and just get stuff like that. the stuff people always want. cuz i agree with that article about being able to just buy a normal copy of a classic album. should be easier.

yeah format can definitely matter if you care about things like sound. its a case by case thing. someone brought in a bunch of those trojan reggae cd boxes. those little ones that sell pretty cheaply. does anyone here own any of those? they sound horrible. they sound really bad. in comparison to the 45s or albums the stuff was originally on. there are lots of cases like that.

Wait the little Trojan CD boxsets?

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WTx6UCJb2EA/TdHhJjmd-gI/AAAAAAAABVs/gCLZUT4IVAM/s1600/ska%2Bbox%2Bset.jpg

I love those things :(

I didn't notice them sounding so bad. I also don't own any original 45s to compare against. All I have of reggae vinyl is a Trojan boxset from the 80s I think and a King Tubby compilation (also 80s).

But I like those Trojan CD sets so much- I'm always seeking new ones out. I think they're a lot of fun.

what you don't know won't hurt you! and yeah they are a good cheap way to check stuff out.

There are a good chunk of them that aren't so cheap, too.

Do you charge a blanket price for them?

well sure any individual LP can sound better than a poorly mastered CD, and there are a lot of those

and a poorly mastered/warped/low QC vinyl can sound much shittier than a CD

i guess i just don't have a lot of respect for people who rep for vinyl on principle, it's just wankery to me

and yeah those trojan boxes sound like total shit

OTOH jamaican vinyl pressings are notorious... I always look for UK pressings of trojan and other stuff

original trojan vinyl is nice. pre-1975 or whenever. the 45s are great. again, case by case basis. later trojan vinyl comps lose some attention to detail and were kinda churned out hastily. even the original trojan dudes remixed/rerecorded old stuff for comps in the 70's. its sad that so many people think that about jamaican pressings. but what are you gonna do. you have to hear a lot of music on a lot of labels to know how amazing it can be.

i take the merits of every record and every cd i listen to one at a time. having said that, i listen to a lot of records and they blow my mind in lots of ways almost every day. this doesn't happen as much with compact discs. their sound is often predictable. less surprises. its a red letter day when i hear a great one.

"you have to hear a lot of music on a lot of labels to know how amazing it can be."

which is why i still respect people who talk about stuff that they don't know about or have just heard anecdotal comments about. but it is a shame that one of the poorest countries on earth with one of the richest musical legacies on earth put out some of the greatest sounding records i've ever heard (production, engineering, sound of actual vinyl pressing) and this kinda dismissive comment gets passed around as truth.

lee perry box set is terrible too. sound-wise. i couldn't even listen to it when i got a copy in here. arkology. such a shame. again, if you don't know the difference you probably aren't gonna care. but the differences between original recordings of those songs and what's on that box are VAST. just no comparison in many cases. you are only getting half their power on those discs. which is still plenty powerful for most mortals.

imo, the thing about 'jamaican pressings' is not always true, but it is HARD to find clean copies of jamaican records. which i think feeds into people thinking its the pressing. when it could just be grooveworn or scratchy or w/e.

yeah, i've lucked out in that regard. i have sold a lot of stuff like this, and its not the stuff you see in used record stores too often:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/richard-mcdonald-wanna-free-dub-phase-cosmonamic-/230954562981

when i think of the music lab ten inches i have sold...oof...i'll take them over a lot of audiophile vinyl any day of the week. sadly i can't keep them cuzza the whole staying in business thing.

also in used record stores a lot cheap jamaican Island pressings and all the usual suspects like third world and the like on jamaican vinyl that was churned out to meet demand for late 70's/early 80's pop reggae.

i dunno of maybe 50-60 jamaican-pressed LPs i have, maybe 10-20 sound excellent and 10-20 are completely fucked--off-center printing, warped disc, thin trebly sound, tons of surface noise. and i'm talking about vinyl that's at least clean, not beat up.

i'm not saying that all or nearly all jamaican pressings are shit, i'm just saying it's a huge crapshoot.

also scott you're kind of being a jerk for presuming i don't know what i'm talking about.

i don't think i've ever been that dismissive to you.

abandoned record warehouse

http://vf-images.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Screen-Shot-2013-08-02-at-16.56.03.png

its a shame but what are you gonna do? there were dumpsters lined up behind radio stations for years in the 80's/90's. filled with juicy promos. looks like a euro-warehouse too. lotsa chanson at le landfill.

Looks like it would be fun to dig through but I'd be worried about where to step.

http://www.overthinkingit.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/planb.jpg

lotsa chanson at le landfill.

― scott seward, Wednesday, August 7, 2013 1:52 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha thats all i could think too (except on the off chance that a couple sick PALM jazz records found their way in there too)

did we miss this one?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324263404578611910431238662.html

the dude who took pictures of the warehouse has more pictures on his website and you can get a look at some covers. papillon soundtracks. diana ross and wallace collection 45s. etc.

http://www.lesmainsnoires.blogspot.com.br/

(i don't think that's behind their paywall, works for me anyway) (my WSJ reading father actually cut it out of the paper and mailed it to me, very quaint)

"While annual sales of rare U.S. records are relatively small—about $10 million"

i like that this is an actual quote in the wsj. maybe people won't horn in on my action if they think that's the extent of things.

i mean i have no idea how much money "rare" record sales adds up to, but i know its more than that.

i actually like some of the stuff that dude in the story put out on Big Beat. some good freestyle/house singles. some crap too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDkEof9VtHk

http://www.decibelmagazine.com/diary/low-fidelity-the-reality-of-the-record-business-circa-2013/

i know someone who by himself spent 50k on vinyl in a single year

oh yeah totally. that's a drop in the bucket for someone with a stereo system worth $500,000.

its really easy to do. i just know that i actually make a living selling old records and provide for, like, my children and i am just one dude. out of many dudes.

I wonder what NJ record stores Neill works at.

you'd imagine that the people who can afford to spend that much money on records are the people with the least amount of idle time on their hands to listen to them

Hey, he mentioned "any_book" amazon seller! I've always been mystified by that seller myself; what is the scam behind it exactly...

how much did Dante end up with from that one free jazz auction? 20 grand? more?

how much does craig moerer make in a year? a bunch. that euclid dude brought 20,000 records from st.louis to the wilco festival in western mass this summer for a 2 day pop-up store! dude has cash.

What a risk. I'd be worried about making the money back, unless I didn't have to.

what is the freight cost of moving 20k lps halfway across the country?

what kind of people go to wilcofest anyhow? are they record buyers?? figured they'd be the ipod type

I'm sure you've got some dadrockers with a turntable and disposable income going to wilcofest

maybe not enough to buy 20,000 records though

more crackle talk...

http://www.factmag.com/2012/05/09/the-broken-record-vinyl-matter-memory-and-meaning/

SO BAD.

wait, this is from last year. maybe i already got mad at this guy on here. i'm not gonna check...

The broken record: vinyl, matter, memory and meaning

...and then, sometimes, I'm glad I didn't go to college.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N5XW5GW8Vo&feature=youtu.be

my mom just sent me one of these articles from the tulsa world. it was written by this guy
http://www.tulsaworld.com//articleimages/2013/stancavage-john.jpg
he starts out by defending the monkees

"stanky"

Jean Taylor - Tulsa posted 4 days ago
I've been collecting classical vinyl records the last three years. Have now a huge collection, and still no turntable! LOL I'm holding out for one where I can put a stack of records on, so the music will play a long, long time. All the new turntables I've seen for sale in the stores today only play one record at a time. That's no good! LOL 
I've had good luck finding vinyls at estate sales. They usually cost about $2 a piece, but sometimes I get lucky, and find some left when the prices are dropped 75%! But the vinyls themselves are priceless. The sound quality, to me, is superior to any digital recording I have ever heard. I say that, but maybe I haven't had the best digital players.... :) 

http://i39.tinypic.com/ifd5li.jpg

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151766780324214&set=a.78155749213.74698.70867474213&type=1

Things just got real: http://blogs.laweekly.com/westcoastsound/2013/08/whole_foods_record_store.php

yeah, noted in the post right before your post.

Duh. Whoops...

to be fair you would have no idea if you didn't click that facebook link. it makes sense though. cheese, quinoa, yogurt, black keys record. its stylish, man.

ilxor quotes ilxor in tape comeback shocker!

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/06/opinion/coleman-cassette-day/?hpt=hp_bn7

:D

I didn't know where else to put this so I put it here

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/27/tech/innovation/death-stereo-system/index.html?c=tech

(CNN) - For many years, it was a rite of fall.

You moved into your dorm room or new apartment. You started unpacking the car. And the first thing you set up in your new place was the stereo system: receiver, turntable or CD player, tape deck and speakers.

The wires could get tangled, and sometimes you had to make shelving out of a stack of milk crates. But only when the music was playing on those handpicked CDs, mix tapes or (geezer alert!) vinyl records did you move in the rest of your stuff.

geezer alert!
lolol

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/01/06/vinyl_lp_sales_hit_22_year_record_in_2013_digital_music_sales_down_chart.html

better than the usual article, some interesting stats in there

http://oakpark.suntimes.com/news/rsd-FPH-04192014:article

A line of people stood waiting at the register of Val’s halla Records in Oak Park the morning of April 19, most with records in their hands.

That’s right, records; those black, round objects about the size of a dinner plate. First supplanted by the 8-tracks, cassette tapes, then smaller compact disks and later by the invisible digital downloads.

and soon by ponos.

Val's halla Records in Oak Park

in Oak Park

Oak Park

https://pulseradio.net/articles/2014/05/north-america-s-biggest-vinyl-manufacturer-plans-expansion

that's pretty interesting - I wonder if those are really "new" presses, or just refurbished ones cobbled together from old ones?

http://westerndigs.org/vinyl-records-excavated-at-famous-60s-commune-challenge-hippie-stereotype-study-says/

lol of course the only contemporary records were Super Session and a Vanilla Fudge LP

better than usual article:

http://pitchfork.com/features/articles/9467-wax-and-wane-the-tough-realities-behind-vinyls-comeback/

http://pitchfork-cdn.s3.amazonaws.com/longform/88/P4K_Features_072314_WaxAndWane-BarGraph02%20copy.png

i laughed at the anecdote about how many bands want to put blood in their records.

apparently the perfect pussy album actually did, maybe it was a different plant to that quoted

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/magazine/the-brazilian-bus-magnate-whos-buying-up-all-the-worlds-vinyl-records.html

that story is completely insane.

it really is

haha yeah it was wild. I liked it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/24/style/international/music-technology-comes-full-circle.html?mabReward=RI%3A12&action=click&pgtype=Homepage®ion=CColumn&module=Recommendation&src=rechp&WT.nav=RecEngine&_r=0

local newspaper reporter came in and told me he wants to do a store on vinyl is back. full circle. like a record.

“There is a cultural slowing-down where people can sit in the same room at the same time and have something playing that they all can listen to.”

b/c there's no way to do that with any other music format!