According to Nielsen Soundscan, CD sales fell from 553.4 million in 2006 to 360.6 million in 2008, while MP3 sales grew from 32.6 million to 65.8 million during the same period.

Surprisingly, while the CD dwindles on the endangered list, the vinyl record has returned on the radar. Vinyl sales rose 89 percent from 990,000 in 2007 to 1.88 million in 2008, according to Nielsen. Rolling Stone reports that the sale of turntables rebounded from 275,000 in 2006 to nearly half a million in 2007.

Though vinyl represents only a fraction of total music sales, the sparked interest for a medium that has long been declared dead intrigues the ear. Vinyl is being revived.

In the post cassette-tape era, the CD was the solution for portability and easier track to track navigation, but that solution became outdated when the MP3 gave listeners the opportunity to carry their entire music collection in their pocket.

So if our excessive need for miniaturization is fulfilled and thriving, why the sudden interest in vinyl?

Vinyl has a warmer, richer and more accurate sound quality that can capture the subtle tones of the instruments that disappear with MP3 compression. There is also a nostalgia experienced when the needle is set on the grooves of the record, cracking into place and clicking back to side two with as much patience as one would use to light the coal of hookah.

There is also a higher aesthetic quality to the record. You don’t see people framing CD art, it’s too small. The larger format of the LP allows for more graphic detail and artistic freedom, giving the case the value of functionality.

Downloading a digital album has no aesthetic or tangible satisfaction and the flimsy CD and its plastic case have nothing on the physicality of the record. Vinyl is more durable than a CD and its owners are more careful. The case is thinner and larger, which actually makes it easier to transport a pile of records than a stack of CDs.

The warm sound of the record doesn’t lose quality with retro equipment either. It gets more cozy. The scratches become a part of the song, unlike the piercing repeat of a scuffed CD.

The whole experience is personal: from joyously thumbing through LP’s of Bob Dylan, Miles Davis and The Kinks that you scavenged from the basement of Cheapo to hearing the fuzzy crackle of your blown out 1987 Hi Fi speakers of the turntable you snatched off Craigslist. It’s as close as you’ll ever get to hanging with Dylan and its vintage appearance screams of good taste.

The record player speaks of a lifestyle for which many young people yearn. Having grown up on neon overload, babysat by the TV, fed a diet consisting of toxic levels of products containing corn syrup and deafened by the degrading sing-song lyrics of pop music, the vinyl experience is a detox for your senses.

Bands are realizing this trend and have been successfully releasing new vinyl albums, like “In Rainbows” by Radiohead. According to Nielsen, Radiohead topped the sales charts with 61,200 vinyl albums, followed by The Beatles with 39,500 and Metallica with 20,400.

The record is definitely back. You can even get a turntable with an iPod dock, a USB port and CD recorder. But will the vinyl be the everlasting tangible form? Or will our need for physicality become as miniature the size of our MP3 player? Hopefully throwback is here to stay.

Ashley Goetz welcomes comments at agoetz@mndaily.com.

The Return of Vinyl

Years after the advent of tapes, CDs and MP3s, vinyl sales are making a comeback

By Chad Rutan

 

 

The return of vinyl

Vinyl records see re-emergence in Shoals

Jim Hannon

Chris James puts a vinyl recording onto a USB turntable that is connected to his computer.

 

By Russ Corey
Staff Writer

 

Published: Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 3:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Monday, February 15, 2010 at 11:27 p.m.

Chris James may have grown up during a time when the vinyl record was being replaced by the CD, but like a lot of young people, he's rediscovering why vinyl records were so popular in the first place.

Click to enlarge

Vinyl recordings can be played on a USB turntable that is connected to a computer.
 

Jim Hannon

 

There are numerous articles on the Internet trumpeting the return of the vinyl record and how it continues to increase in popularity even as overall album sales, mainly CDs, continue to slip.

James was first introduced to vinyl records by his parents, who had a collection that included The Doors and Three Dog Night.

"That's really how I started liking music in general," said James, bass player for the local

alt-rock band Lauderdale.

Vinyl records have a more natural sound and more room to provide listeners with liner notes and album artwork. While they might not be as prevalent in record stores as they once were, you can find vinyl records in used record stores, flea markets, junk stores, online and at live shows.

"You can get into different kinds of music that way, too," James said.

Shoals-based recording artist Jason Isbell said he insists a new album includes a run of vinyl records when he's negotiating a record contract.

"Listening to vinyl as a kid was such a ritual," Isbell said. "You had to actually physically maintain your record player; you had to flip (the record) over from side A to side B."

Even though there's only one side to a CD, Isbell said he arranges the tracks on his albums with an ending to what would be side A and the beginning of side B.

Many say the sound of a vinyl album has a warm sound as opposed to the sometimes "brittle" sound of a CD.

Patterson Hood, a former Shoals resident and founder of the rock band Drive-By Truckers, also is a fan of vinyl because it provides the best sounding and best looking way to own music, he said.

"It sounds better than CDs or MP3s," Hood said. "While it doesn't have the convenience of the MP3, some people still like to listen at home and have a physical format."

Most of the Truckers' catalog is available on vinyl, and the vinyl version of their upcoming release, "The Big To Do," will include an extra track that will not be included on the compact disc version.

"It's a good one, too," Hood said. "I included three extra tracks on the vinyl version of my last solo album this past year."

And like many artists, the new album will include a CD version of the album so it can be downloaded to an MP3 player or listened to in a car CD player. Vinyl albums also provide a larger medium for artwork than a CD.

"There's just the aesthetic aspect to it," Isbell said. "You can hang a record on your wall; you can put them on display in your house. I believe in quality artwork on record covers."

Jamie Barrier, songwriter and guitarist for the Pine Hill Haints, Rise Up Howling Werewolf and The Wednesdays, has released his bands' music on vinyl for years, on both 12-inch LPs and 7-inch discs.

Barrier's Arkam Records has 40 releases, 80 percent of which were 7-inch and 12-inch vinyl records. "I sell more of it every year," Barrier said. "There's a certain type of market of people that never quit listening to it."

Even when vinyl lost its mass appeal, fans of punk and alternative music expected vinyl releases.

Barrier agrees that in many cases, people want something tangible to complement their digital downloads.

Logan Rogers, president of Lightning Rod Records in Nashville, said care has to go into estimating how many vinyl records an artist might sell. "It's a more expensive process, so we definitely have to be fairly realistic about what you can sell," Rogers said. "You don't want to manufacture too many."

Lightning Rod released "Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit" on CD and vinyl. Rogers said the vinyl version is a double-LP that includes a copy of the CD.

"If you pick up the LP at the store or at the concert, you can immediately stick the CD in your car and listen to it," he said.

Eli Flippen, owner of Pegasus Records, Tapes and CDs in Florence, has been selling new and used vinyl records for years. Flippen said he stocks as many LP versions of new releases as he can.

Used record sales have been strong, especially classic rock from the late 1960s and early 1970s. Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles are some of the most popular, he said. High school and college students hearing vinyl for the first time are detecting differences between the LP and MP3 versions of the songs.

"People kind of realize that the old analog warmth is more pleasing," he said.

Russ Corey can be reached at 740-5738 or russ.corey@TimesDaily.com.

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Ten Years Gone – A Long Awaited Return to Vinyl Playback
by Tom Gibbs

Roughly ten years ago I was forced to make one of the most difficult decisions of my life, and for a multitude of reasons, sold my analog-based big rig, and replaced it with a home theater-oriented system that was less than one-tenth its value. Gone were the Magneplanars, Classe monoblocks and preamp, high-end CD transport and outboard DAC, and most of all, my prized Linn turntable and cartridge. I also sold most of my LPs, holding onto a scant fifty or so treasured titles that I considered irreplaceable, even though prospects of ever playing them again seemed rather dim at the time. My musical life, it seemed to me, was pretty much over, and I spent precious little time listening to anything that remotely resembled music.

The years that passed between then and now found me facing a variety of challenges financially, including my wife’s ongoing battle with cancer, and putting my daughter through a prohibitively expensive private college. But overall, life has been pretty good to me, and I’ve managed to weather all this so far without having to file for bankruptcy – yet. And I’ve taken an almost radically less elitist approach to my music-listening obsession; while I still dream about winning the lotto and filling a palace with ghastly expensive electronics, I’ve become much more firmly rooted in my own reality. Over the years, with thrifty shopping at mostly second-hand audio salons, I’ve managed to rebuild my system in piecemeal fashion, including the addition of SACD playback. And while it still is, in essence, a home theater-based experience, I’ve managed to build in the option for higher resolution multichannel and two-channel listening as well. While I realize that my current setup could never hold a candle to my former system, I’ve become very comfortable with its ability to accurately deliver satisfying and realistic multichannel and stereo musical experiences.

The whole SACD experience fundamentally changed my thoughts and approach toward listening to music; there are some incredibly well-recorded SACDs out there, and the opportunity to listen to classic performances, such as the three-channel Mercury and Living Stereo discs has been nothing short of a revelation. And while the SACD situation has gotten a little murky over the last year or so, there’s enough new music coming out to keep me perfectly happy with a digitally-based music system for a long time, right? Well, yes, maybe – at least, that is, until my wife recently surprised me with an early birthday present – a new turntable!

Yes, that’s right, a new turntable – I guess she really was paying attention after all when I’d told her about the offers of review copies of recent LP releases I’d received from both Classic Records and Sundazed. And while I was initially a little concerned with how the new table would interface synergistically with the system – how needlessly we sometimes worry! It’s been a slam-dunk – with the LPs slamming any and everything coming in competition. The last six weeks have been miraculous to say the least – talk about a fundamental change in my approach to listening to music – and an excellent opportunity to compare some recent SACD releases of classic RCA Living Stereo recordings to their vinyl counterparts.

Of the first three LPs I received from Classic Records, two of them, Respighi’s Pines of Rome/Fountains of Rome and Strauss Waltzes have just been released in multichannel SACD counterparts; the third LP, Stokowski’s Rhapsodies was released as an SACD last year. I have waxed poetic about the superb quality of the RCA Living Stereo SACD releases, and it’s inarguable – these are the highest incarnations in digital-disc format that we are ever likely to see of these excellent recordings. Whether listening in stereo or three channels, the experience is revelatory, easily shaming any previous Red Book CD versions. Most of the discs offer generous playing lengths, and are priced attractively anywhere from 10 to 13 dollars. So, pray tell, how does the vinyl compare?

It’s undeniable that there’s an intoxicating allure associated with vinyl; just holding these fabulous 200 gram black beauties in your hands transports you to another place and time, long before the record’s started playing. And when the needle hits the groove, the real magic begins; the deja vu you thought you were experiencing a moment earlier becomes the real thing when you’re freakishly transported back to a cold, wintry day in 1950s Chicago Orchestra Hall, or other fantastically similar destinations. To hear is to believe; the experience, in a word, is incredible – these vinyl treasures are miles beyond anything currently available, taking the listening experience exponentially to the next level.

First up is the Fritz Reiner/CSO classic Strauss Waltzes (Classic Records LSC 2500-200), in comparison to the BMG-Sony SACD Vienna, which culls four tracks from the LP release: Vienna Blood, Roses from the South, Treasure Waltz and Thunder and Lightning Polka. While some may find this often-played repertory a bit too schmaltzy, I find it darn near irresistible. At first listen, the SACD sounds really superb through the stereo layer, and switching to three channels seems to fill the soundstage more effectively by giving the overall image a bit more even spread. Everything about the presentation is first rate; the strings have an overall sweetness that totally belies their digital origins, and climaxes – especially on the speaker-busting polka – are truly thunderous. I did a lot of A to B comparisons, frequently switching between LP and SACD, and noticed right away that regardless of playback level, the LP offered the superior listening experience. With every aspect that the SACD offered superb performance (with the exception of the ability to listen in three channels), the LP bettered the SACD, and the differences weren’t subtle. There was just more of everything – Classic’s LP had a better and more well-defined soundstage presentation, offering a much more palpable sense of reality that even in three channels the SACD couldn’t touch. There was much more of a sense of recreation of the recorded acoustic, with huge front-to-back and lateral imaging – you’re in Chicago’s Orchestra Hall. Of course there was some groove modulation noise occasionally present in the LP, but nothing too distracting. Even some occasional pops and ticks were not enough to push any of my buttons – listening to the LP was so much more involving, it made me oblivious to any mechanical shortcomings of the disc, and I found myself just getting lost in the music.

The above observations were mostly also true for the next disc in my survey, Respighi’s Pines of Rome/Fountains of Rome (Classic Records LSC 2436-200). My comparison here focused not only on the recently released SACD (which also offers the added bonus of Debussy’s La Mer also featuring Reiner and the CSO), but I also had the 180-gram original Classic Records pressing of the Pines/Fountains disc as well. With regards to LP versus SACD, and not wanting to sound like a broken record, the LP just ran rings around the SACD with regard to every aspect of the listening experience. Even against three channels, the stereo 200-gram LP was able to retrieve the last nuances of the performance, such that the stereo LPs’ presentation was just so much more dynamic than the SACD. The soundfield just extended beyond and behind the speakers in a way the SACDs couldn’t match. My main surprise here was in the differences between the 180-gram pressing and the much newer 200-gram pressing of Pine/Fountains. My 180-gram pressing is among Classics’ earliest output, featuring their very first vinyl formulation – which I personally feel is just flat out inferior to their current Quiex 200-gram pressings. And it hasn’t been played for a very long time, so I expected it to be in pristine condition – which it was. But in playback terms, it was much, much noisier, and had somewhat restricted dynamics compared to the 200-gram vinyl. Something that I noticed about the time I ceased listening to vinyl ten years ago was that Classic’s original vinyl formulation just seemed to me to get noisier with every play – even markedly so. The opposite seems to be the case with the 200-gram pressings – the background just gets even quieter every time I cue the record up, and in terms of flatness of the pressings and trackability – the 200-gram discs are the clear winners. As with the Strauss disc, the 200-gram LP brought me closer to the music in this timeless classic.

Finally comes Leopold Stokowski’s classic Rhapsodies (Classic Records LSC 2471-200), also as compared to the SACD release (from 2005) and the original Classic Records 180-gram vinyl. This thoroughly enchanting disc covers the full range of emotion, from the fiery intensity of folk-based rhapsodies from both Liszt and Enesco to the lyrical joyfulness of Smetana’s Moldau and Bartered Bride Overture. Of course, the 200-gram vinyl trounced everything for pure listening pleasure – once again, I was really dismayed at how badly my original Classic pressing fared noise-wise compared to the more recent vinyl. My only real caveat with any of the newer Classic releases appeared with this particular recording – the disc arrived slightly scratched on side two. The gentle, winding intro to the Moldau has a repetitive pop for about the first 30 seconds, which comes about as darn close as anything to pushing me into the outer limits. This disc was an unsealed review copy, and may have been mishandled prior to my getting it. I’ve ordered several other 200-gram pressings from Classic recently, and had nary a problem.

So, overall, how has my reintroduction to vinyl been? Well, vinyl isn’t without its limitations. Even the 200-gram records are not completely noise free, with occasional ticks and pops. Compared to digital media, vinyl must be handled rather a bit more gingerly and cleaned occasionally. There’s the stylus care to be mindful of, and of course, one has to jump up after every side to change the record. Boy, have I gotten lazy after ten years of nothing but shiny silver discs! But even with the mechanical shortcomings of an acoustic medium, these newest LPs from Classic Records offer a level of musicality that’s untouched by any other format. Some may find the 30-dollar asking price prohibitive; but for those who have the wherewithal and playback equipment, no finer listening experience can be had, at any price. While the SACDs offer incredible bang for the buck, the LPs are truly the real deal, offering the listener unparalleled realism. All of these discs are very highly recommended! Thanks, again, to Peele Wimberley at Classic Records, www.classicrecords.com