I’ve never bought a turntable for myself but my folks still have one. My millennial nieces, who grew up on iPods, think that vinyl is magical. How could a spinning disc result on such a good sound? I’m sure there is a fascination with mechanical sound for many of the vinyl buyers.
I also wonder if there’s something about owning a physical copy of the music that appeals. I don’t mind having everything in digital form; I’m a software guy so it’s pretty normal but I can imagine a lot of people want to buy something they can touch and look at.
It’s not a bad format, and, I think I mentioned this before, but to the extent that you get some “lo-fi” effects because of the reality of having to play records back through less-than-ideal equipment, many people, if not “fascinated”, at least don’t find it unpleasant. E.g., near the beginning of “Digital Done Wrong” he claims
Don’t know if it is related to the format wars, but while distortion and noise have been deliberately used as a musical tool for ages, general “lo-fi aesthetics” are popular enough to merit a Wikipedia article as a distinct musical style:
Although Spotify is amazing and Google and Amazon have done interesting and useful things with books, I like having physical copies of books and compact discs. The popularity of things is cyclical, but an innate love of beautiful objects is not. Vinyl is more trouble than it’s worth to me. My father had a record player and as kids we used it more than he did (at that time).
Someone mentioned fountain pens earlier. They are indeed making a (small) comeback in the last decade or so.
I tend to exclusively handwrite with fountain pens (I have a Lamy 2000 and TWBSI Eco as my main pens these days). And part of that is because I write with a pen so infrequently I like having something that feels good to write with (and Fountain pens tend to write smoother than ballpoints - and have far more interesting inks). Yes, there is the greater mess with refilling but I like it.
That’s probably a similar thing to those preferring vinyl, cassettes, etc. It’s just an interesting old tech.
I mentioned it at one point. That’s an interesting point: today, if one is going to bother writing (especially a lot), why not use a good pen that is comfortable to write with? (Of course there are crappy fountain pens, too, but this is not a comprehensive discussion of fountain pens.)
Now, if you are going to bother collecting physical albums instead of high-res digital files, why not go for the cool, beautiful vinyl release? OTOH digital formats have certain advantages. But, rather than speculate, since at least one person reading this works in a record store, what do the young, non-hipsters [if someone is easily identifiable as a “hipster”, doesn’t that mean that they are carefully conforming their tastes? At least the “weirdos” know what they like] who choose vinyl over CD say about it? Both formats are non-streaming and you get an actual disc.
I get my high-res digital files by buying CDs, as it is the easiest, most affordable way to get them these days. I buy CDs instead of LPs because they cost less, and are more durable as backups and much handier to convert into those digital files than the vinyl. As another poster said upthread, vinyl is way more trouble than it’s worth.
I do not necessarily disagree, but, remember, CD sales are dropping precipitously while vinyl sales are still rising. So, no matter what you or I may think, the fact is that people walking into record stores are spurning CDs and it does not seem to be hipster-driven. @Lavender_Pebble maybe you know the underlying reasons?
I always assumed that handful of 1980s cars that used digital speedometers used them because in that era it made them appear “modern” and “high tech”.
But continuing the hijack, the discussion of vehicles with digital displays that still display an analog looking gauge reminded me of this story. Back in the early 1980s when Boeing introduced the 737-300 they offered a glass cockpit as an option, however Southwest ordered theirs with the old-school analog avionics in order to maintain commonality with their older 737-200s. Now fast-forward to the 1990s, when Boeing was designing the 737NG. On the 737NG the glass cockpit was now mandatory, but Southwest still wanted to maintain as much commonality with the analog cockpits on the older 737s. So they got Boeing to program the displays on theirs to emulate the appearance of the analog instruments on the older planes. Here, for example, you can see the displays in a Southwest 737-700 showing analog style gauges.
In essence, the digital displays that are becoming common in new cars are like glass cockpits for cars.
AND it’s more tactile than a ball point, and (here’s where it’s like the Vinyl vs CD question), much more immediate, more authentic, than typing on a computer.
In fact, after I teach (college design) students to use all the Adobe stuff, I work with them on developing their handwriting style. And a couple of them have gone on to do hand-drawn type for branding, packaging and signage.
And even doing “Calligraffiti”, using handwriting and classical calligraphy… large.
Not sure what you mean by “tactile”, but a good fountain pen will [not skip/dry up and] write with zero pressure, thus making it extremely comfortable to use. As for something vaguely analogous to having a different sound and a different preference for “analogue” versus “digital” sound, last time I checked many fountain pens came with a rigid nib, but depending on your preference you might favour an extremely flexible nib— certainly it is more expressive.
In this analogy, the “weirdos” would be the ones using a dip pen. The whole process of writing now becomes much more deliberate as you have to really mean it, sit down at a desk, fill up an inkwell, pause after every few lines to dip your pen, etc. It really necessitates a different approach and is much less convenient. But I imagine anyone bothering to do this would (or would like to!) produce beautiful calligraphy, or it sets them in mind to create beautiful prose, or something. Maybe such people would enjoy setting up a turntable or reel-to-reel tape more than asking the robot assistant to shuffle some top-40 hits.
The fundamental format war would be paper vs electronic books, also digital art vs hand-drawn art, but as someone said above paper was never close to being abandoned, nor traditional art for illustration, comics, animation.
Come to think of it, as long as we are talking about music and abandoned formats, one format for music that has been pretty much abandoned is anything not in equal temperament. Equal temperament is certainly convenient for a lot of 20th century Western atonal music, jazz, rock, pop, etc. Not necessarily so much for folk music, a cappella music, classical music both Western and non-Western, etc. But for sure each of us hears it all the time, enough to get really used to the sound, even if you also like bagpipes and Indian classical music.
Different tuning may be making a little tiny bit of a comeback, but it is still safe to say not a significant comeback as far as I can tell.
In 1999, CDs sold $20 billion. And yeah, you can see the tiniest uptick of vinyl from 2010 to 2019, but compared to streaming it’s negligible. And the whole music sales industry has collapsed compared to 20 years ago.
Dr.Strangelove said just what I was going to. Pointing out how vinyl sales are soaring is misleading, when the sales of physical copies of music total have crashed.
Anecdotally, of the people I know, those who aren’t heavily into music have moved 100 % onto streaming. They don’t buy CD’s, but they sure as hell don’t buy LP’s, either. They also don’t visit the struggling music stores that these days have more space for LP’s than CD’s. Buying either is a pretty fringe activity.
I imagine the flexible nib is what gives you the ability to create lines of varying width, which adds to the aesthetic of writing. I don’t use fountain pens myself but I have no criticism of those who like them. This is one area where I’ve gone modern. I do very little handwriting, but when I do, my instrument of choice is the Pilot G-2 gel-ink ballpoint pen. The rubber grip and extremely smooth feel of the gel ink makes it probably the most comfortable writing utensil I’ve ever used.
One thing to say of the CD, which is looking like a dead format here, is that it is highly effective for small bands to sell their music. Streaming gives them insignificant reward. They gig to small audiences who then make it worth it buying their music and merch. CD’s are durable, small, easily lugged to the venue and make the gig worthwhile rather than close to working for free. Every band who’s filling big enough venues to make it pay, have played a hundred gigs before and would be bankrupt through petrol costs alone without the likes of CDs.
Cassettes, when those were sold at gigs, just weren’t good value though. That’s why I bought about 200 odd cds in 2019 (2020 doesn’t count, only got about 5 in).
I’m not going to say something from the 2000s is abandoned but during lockdown I purchased a USB MP3 stick which I remember using 15 years ago as the cool on the go device for listening to downloaded songs. The reason is while having a smartphone with music apps and podcast apps is streamlined as a process rather than having to download then burn onto an MP3, I just got irritated of going for a run in the park or whatever and feeling my big sized phone shift inside my pocket. And no way was I going to buy one of those arm pouches to carry a phone I see others use. So I just bought a very small clip on MP3 that I am now totally oblivious to its presence while I’m moving. It uses a 32GB storage card and has a horizontal screen to see what is on a playlist.
I wish I had a better answer. My guess is that “aesthetic” is really important to kids these days. And I think vinyl reads cooler than a CD (your dad had CDs) and is also easier to photograph, maybe because it reminds these non-hipsters of what they thought was cool when they were in grade school - a type of hipster nostalgia? That was probably created by Urban Outfitters carrying vinyl and marketing it to these kids.
So if you want to impress your Instagram crowd, you hold up some vinyl next to your candy-colored Crosley and a monstera and BAM. Cool points. And they do actually seem to listen to it and have good insights about music, at least the ones that talk to me (which is probably a skewed sample if they are getting records in person rather than online). But we get A LOT of people that come into our store just for photoshoots too (especially marriage shots? Very weird), and they don’t buy anything.
Heck, even those who are very into music seem to be happy with Tidal’s Hi-Fi tier (yes, Tidal has been ridiculed a bit, but those who are more audiophile (the most audiophile will use a DAC and physical music) swear by it for wifi streaming.
