OMG, People Buy Records? Vinyl In The News Thread

(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

heh I bumped a different thread but this will do

Sorry, didn't see that!

Much like the squeeze in the run up to RSD, I'm sure it'll be the small labels who really get hit hard by this

man that is a bummer

i see copies of /dance/ going for $20+ these days

i see copies of /dance/ going for $20+ these days

https://www.stereogum.com/2111728/vinyl-just-had-its-best-sales-week-ever/news/

... in the SoundScan era

the guy at the local record store definitely thinks the pandemic has helped the vinyl resurgence...kinda one of the few hobbies you can have right now

Sadly, my favorite spot in Bushwick (Northern Lights on Lawton Street) appears to have closed indefinitely, I assume undone by the effects of long-term quarantine closure. Maybe they're still maintaining their online business, but I'm not sure where that is/was. It was a super solid spot where I bought all my first jazz acquisitions and a lot more besides that, and all at non-insane prices that put every other spot in the area to shame.

(thankfully, the hole-in-the-wall Rebel Rouser, on 'hipster alley' between Belvidere and Locust on Broadway, is still kicking. you don't find as many irresistible bargains, but essentially every single record is labeled as to its condition, genre, great deep cuts, "WOW," "Beat but plays great!" etc. has a solid niche in the vague but comprehensible Nuggets->power-pop->glam->punk zone.)

I love Rebel Rouser, always hit it when I'm in NYC. Been trying to support them online a bit since I'd be sad to see them go.

OTM re:irresistable bargains/labeling. A lot of my record collector friends are super bargain-obsessed and idk I guess I'm different in that, while I love finding a spot with cheap prices obviously, I also dont really mind paying a fair price a lot of the time - as long as I know what I'm getting, trust the grading, etc, plus just liking the store, which RR checks all the boxes for me.

https://djmag.com/longreads/pressing-issues-end-vinyl-revival
no surprises but a good read nonetheless

A month ago a label I like announced one of those "first time on vinyl" reissues....for September. Maybe. It's nuts out there. A lot of the things mentioned in that article don't seem like permanent trends - virtually every industry has been affected this way the last couple years. But the markets sure do seem to assume that a bunch of albums just aren't gonna get repressed. idk if this is gonna kill interest in the format - it seems more popular than ever - but something's gotta give

guess the big question is how many people actually expect to get the record on release day to listen to for the first time, as opposed to downloading/streaming it and then buying it later if they like it. I'm in the former category but I suspect I'm very much in the minority there.

haven't been buying much new vinyl but I'm still annoyed that all this results in a lot of people delaying the release of their new music by 6 months. the Vibe Shift might have already happened and I'm late hearing it!

lol

Not sure what thread to ask this on - does anyone press 140g vinyl anymore? Feel like everything that’s been pressed in the last 15 years has been 180g, which eats up the rubber rings in my spin clean. Is there a reason for this or is it just aesthetic?

180g pressings were originally done by boutique audiophile labels on the premise that a heavier pressing would be less susceptible to warping. I think I've seen more recent info that that's not actually the case. Regardless, it's just aesthetic/prestige at this point. Proper mastering and pressing is way more important.

180g records also have a tendency to put much more strain on the cardboard jacket in my experience, which leads to splits and tears much earlier. and anyway records are heavy enough as it is. not a fan.

yeah so weird considering vinyl pvc scarcity

https://www.washingtonian.com/2022/05/03/the-untold-story-of-the-white-houses-weirdly-hip-record-collection/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/08/05/mofi-records-analog-digital-scandal/

discussion here:

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