“The thing with vinyl is that it looks pretty as well as sounds great. And although sales of physical copies have taken a huge dip recently it’s actually vinyl that’s on the up. My experience of being in a band and running an indie label is that your average music collector would rather buy a 7” single than a CD single. So why is this? I think clearly, it’s often as much an aesthetic decision as it is a choice about preferred sound quality.”
“Vinyl is more expensive to make and so arguably more care tends to go into, not only it’s manufacturing, but also its design. Hells, if we’re gonna spend all his money on a lump of plastic why not make it look cool too?! The packaging can be so beautiful and inspired, the record can be any colour of the rainbow, it can be etched and it can have any image you might desire atop its grooves.
You can do this with CDs as well I know, but’s not all about the records themselves. There’s something magical about the mechanics through which they’re played too. I personally have heard very few people gush about much they love their CD player, but I’ve heard plenty of people (myself included) bang on about how they adore their record player.
We’re naturally fascinated by the past. A lot of record players are older than their owners; they may even have been handed down through families. Your player might have been the one your mum listened to when she was growing up, or the weird machine you saw in your Grandad’s house when you visited as a child. OR, you might have been walking by a shop window and there she was elegant, beautiful but a little worn and well loved or maybe she was like new, perhaps wrongingly ignored for years, but you know can’t resist her. You can’t wait to get home and play Neil Young or Black Flag or Vaughn Williams or Edith Piaf or Dum Dum Girls or MIA or whomever you bloody well want!
There’s nothing like the hum of my 1959 Pilot Record Player as the valves warm up. I can’t help but wonder what records have been played on it in the past, where did it sit in the house of the previous owner? Has it played any rare pieces? Did its other owners love it as much as I do?
It’s good to see vinyl sales on the up and I’ll forgo the following in favour of a healthier independent music industry, but there is an upside to vinyl’s relative demise. You can afford to take a risk because second hand vinyl is cheap. Part of the reason I love records so much is because I’ll hit the charity shops or second hand record stores and come back with a huge haul, loads of which I’ve never heard of. How cool is that?
I might be attracted to the cover or the album title, or I know the record label, or I’ve never heard of the record label and I’m intrigued. I can afford to give it a go. Yeah, I can listen to Last FM or hit up Spotify which I also love doing, BUT it’s all that bit sweeter when you’ve got the anticipation. It’s not immediate, I have to wait and in that time between buying the vinyl and playing it, that record has the potential to be the best thing I’ve ever heard, it’s full of promise.
And THAT is so exciting.”
—Rosie
