Given the audiophile insistence on LPs, is there some niche market for new releases on vinyl?
There is.
Vinyl is marketed toward club DJs all the time; my college radio station gets vinyl hip-hop stuff almost every day.
FTR, they make lousy Frisbees when they’re dropped from a third-floor landing.
Robin
Yes. Google “new vinyl releases” and you’ll see many record companies putting music on vinyl.
Vinyl is also used by hip hop DJs for “scratching.”
Yes, although obviously not everything is released this way. I get the impression it’s pretty big in the indie scene.
I bought the last Eminem on vinyl (or the one before that, actually).
I also bought one of the recent foo fighters on vinyl, and the sound was totally messed up.
A lot of hip hop seems to be released on vinyl. As others mentioned before, probably because it gets used in the club scene. But, there’s rock out there, too.
So, anyway, the answer is yes.
Amazon has catagories for vinyl: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/520022/ref=br_indx_music_1_24/203-4087931-6864758
-
-
- I have seen a lot of records on vinyl still being put out, but they were very much not pop/rock/hip-hop music. Mostly “audiophile” types like cassical, jazz and folk. Usually the artists/groups are respected in their genres, but do not have major record labels at all, or big audiences (-by major-record-company standards).
~
- I have seen a lot of records on vinyl still being put out, but they were very much not pop/rock/hip-hop music. Mostly “audiophile” types like cassical, jazz and folk. Usually the artists/groups are respected in their genres, but do not have major record labels at all, or big audiences (-by major-record-company standards).
-
They’re still making audiophile pressings of some music, on 180-gram virgin vinyl, in Japan. And while lots of folks may not care, every Paul McCartney album comes out in a limited vinyl edition. Brian Wilson’s “Smile” album came out on vinyl, too, with 7" singles as well, that had bonus tracks on the B-sides that were not on the CD issue.
One niche market is the indie rock crowd. There is definitely vinyl getting pressed for bands on small labels, though for some of the music, I’m not entirely certain why. It could be for DJs, it could be for the sake of larger cover art (screen printed covers, hand made covers, etc.), it could be because of 20-somethings who have “discovered” record players and want to buy vinyl. And handfuls of 45s continue to be released all over the place.
A good deal of vinyl ouside of hip hop are rereleases of decades-old music which was recorded to be heard on vinyl. Many of us out there prefer the warmer sound of vinyl, and the labels pressing new vinyl know that, and know that we have turntables. Unfortunately a lot of the new non-180 gram releases are cheap pressings and sometimes there are poor or digital remasterings which defeat that purpose.