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apple, ipod, touch (1)Vinyl Isn't Coming Back, It's Festering!
03/07/09 04:29 Filed in: Society | Pop Culture
Lately I have seen a number of articles declaring that vinyl records are making some sort of comeback. It might seem this way but I surmise that this so-called resurgence is little more than a mirage. The fact that teenagers are picking through dollar bins in used music stores looking for music is the result of a few things that are happening right now.
First of all, most major label music sucks! The upshot of this is that listeners are turning to other outlets for musical enjoyment. Since there is an amazing back catalog available in the used music shops it’s easy to see why people would be attracted to the selection and the low prices. Let’s keep in mind that this is product on the resale market and only a diehard few vinyl fans are buying newly manufactured LPs. New Vinyl averages at $25 -$45 per Lp. So really the resurgence here is in use of turntables rather than new music sales. I’d also like to point out that most of the music from the 80’s and first half of the 90’s featured better recordings of better musicians than we typically find today. Don’t believe me? Take a typical 80’s band, let say Tears for Fears, and listen to the quality of the recording versus a typical band from today, let’s say Fallout Boy. See what I mean? There is a very good reason for this discrepancy in sound quality. In the 80’s and early 90’s music (even indie music) was mostly recorded in studios manned by actual recording engineers. The average album took between 6 weeks and 3 months to produce. You could afford to do this because you would then have a product that had value that you could sell. Today music is recorded (in many cases) just as quickly and cheaply as possible, many times in makeshift home studios by people who aren’t as adept at producing a high quality of sound. So what we have is the following trend:
The end product is worth less and, so knowing this, bands and labels put less effort and money into the recording process.
Remember when you were a kid and it made you so happy that you had a baseball card, or an action figure or anything little Billy across the street didn’t have? A similar thing is at play here. Since much of vinyl available at your average used record shop was never released on CD it’s not all that difficult to find great music that isn’t available on the internet for download. This means you have tunes that little Billy doesn’t, and he’s gonna have to go search for another copy of the LP if he want’s to own it! Current music is available on the internet, so even if little Billy is too lazy to track it down for free he can just pay the $.99 and get the songs from iTunes.
I think this so called resurgence will keep getting press until we finally find a solid way to monetize music. When the bottom line improves for the people who create music, my guess is so will all aspects of the quality of the music itself.
First of all, most major label music sucks! The upshot of this is that listeners are turning to other outlets for musical enjoyment. Since there is an amazing back catalog available in the used music shops it’s easy to see why people would be attracted to the selection and the low prices. Let’s keep in mind that this is product on the resale market and only a diehard few vinyl fans are buying newly manufactured LPs. New Vinyl averages at $25 -$45 per Lp. So really the resurgence here is in use of turntables rather than new music sales. I’d also like to point out that most of the music from the 80’s and first half of the 90’s featured better recordings of better musicians than we typically find today. Don’t believe me? Take a typical 80’s band, let say Tears for Fears, and listen to the quality of the recording versus a typical band from today, let’s say Fallout Boy. See what I mean? There is a very good reason for this discrepancy in sound quality. In the 80’s and early 90’s music (even indie music) was mostly recorded in studios manned by actual recording engineers. The average album took between 6 weeks and 3 months to produce. You could afford to do this because you would then have a product that had value that you could sell. Today music is recorded (in many cases) just as quickly and cheaply as possible, many times in makeshift home studios by people who aren’t as adept at producing a high quality of sound. So what we have is the following trend:
The end product is worth less and, so knowing this, bands and labels put less effort and money into the recording process.
Remember when you were a kid and it made you so happy that you had a baseball card, or an action figure or anything little Billy across the street didn’t have? A similar thing is at play here. Since much of vinyl available at your average used record shop was never released on CD it’s not all that difficult to find great music that isn’t available on the internet for download. This means you have tunes that little Billy doesn’t, and he’s gonna have to go search for another copy of the LP if he want’s to own it! Current music is available on the internet, so even if little Billy is too lazy to track it down for free he can just pay the $.99 and get the songs from iTunes.
I think this so called resurgence will keep getting press until we finally find a solid way to monetize music. When the bottom line improves for the people who create music, my guess is so will all aspects of the quality of the music itself.