Someone Said LPs are Coming Back
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There has been a developing interest in the not-yet-dead LP vinyl records as proven by increasing sales compared to declining CD sales. Everyone thought that the format was going to die off, but it is producing heartbeats worth of life. Is the trend here to stay? Are vinyls becoming the “Leet” of the music industry? Are people finally catching on? Possibly. Of course CDs offer the on-the-go versatility, but vinyls offer what the point of music is meant for, to listen to, and they do it better.
Lets put things into perspective. People still swear that vinyl still holds the quality that CDs cannot compare to. The music burned onto the CDs is compressed into zeros and ones and uses technology to interpret the data into playable music. A vinyl on the other hand requires sound physics that involves vibrating a little needle to produce sounds — this is sort of like a cricket in that they rub their legs together to make noise, the needle on a turntable rubs against grooves burned into the vinyl. A preamp takes the sound from the vibrations and amplifies the signal so that it is audible.
The physics involved in a vinyl makes more sense to connoisseurs of music, and more particularly audiophiles. The audible sound is fuller and genuine simply because it comes from actual vibrating material. Ask yourself this, what would sound better: making a crystal glass vibrate to produce noise, or listening to a computer replay a recording of that? I’d want to listen to the real thing (so to speak).
People are yearning for the kind of quality that Blu-Ray is able to offer videophiles. In the same sense, CDs have not even come close to the kind of uncompressed quality that vinyl has been able to produce for audiophiles. The same people who are buying top-quality Blu-Ray and high-definition music are probably looking into buying top-quality music, and vinyls are the fallback.
Future of Music
For one, Internet music is on the rise. With the amount of sales of iPods and similar devices, it should be clear that people do not want to buy media on CDs because they could get the same quality music from the Internet. If these consumers could get better, if not, equal quality compared to the vinyl, record companies wouldn’t be having such an odd problem of “technology fallback”.
Blank CDs that Look Like Vinyl?
The other factor to take into account is the uniqueness and nostalgic effects that vinyls hold. Vinyls are classical and hold actual meaning in comparison to the flavorless CD. You probably don’t own any hardware to burn your own records, which makes them a one-of-a-kind deal in your library. It shows your commitment to a band to own something not as mainstream as the CD. Each vinyl has its own personality of scratches and imperfections — people can refer to this as the live-effect. It is the imperfections that make the music feel live, as if you were listening to an orchestra and heard someone cough.
Selling uncompressed albums on the Internet would be fantastic for business. Currently, iTunes allows people to purchase songs at an upgraded compression quality. But the battle is strong against the all-physical vinyl records, and there is no saying if new technology is being developed to make CDs better. If DVDs were able to agree on new formats, why can’t music companies offer a new medium for bigger, better audio in the same on-the-go format? This doesn’t seem like too much to ask. Spice up music, because the industry is getting stale.
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