# I don’t understand the craze for vinyl
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-don-t-understand-the-craze-for-vinyl/952923
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Tags:** music
**Created:** [October 21, 2021, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-don-t-understand-the-craze-for-vinyl/952923 "2021-10-21T16:34:46Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 13
### Author:  [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2024, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-don-t-understand-the-craze-for-vinyl/952923/242 "2024-03-27T23:52:43Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#):
>
> > [@Jasmine](#):
> >
> > doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense
>
> Neither does leaving your warm dry house to go sleep in the wilderness…
Actually, that’s true of almost any hobby. Why would you spend weeks finding just the right wood and spending tons of money on power tools and getting glue and sawdust all over everything, when you could just buy a chair from the… chair store?
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### Author:  [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2024, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-don-t-understand-the-craze-for-vinyl/952923/243 "2024-03-27T23:56:16Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#):
>
> The dirty secret is a lot of classic albums had bad songs
Back when CDs first came out, I figured hey, these players are sophisticated pieces of electronics. Why can’t we have one that you could program… so that it would recognize, say, Neil Young’s “Comes a Time” CD, and automatically skip “Motorcycle Mama”?
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### Author:  [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2024, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-don-t-understand-the-craze-for-vinyl/952923/244 "2024-03-28T00:02:25Z")
> [@pulykamell](#):
>
> Yep. My kids have a number of vinyls. I have like … three or four. None have ever been played.
What’s weird is that I didn’t even realize until now how old this thread was and that I had already responded twice in it with almost the same info (though now I got to add that my eight-year-old started collecting Taylor Swift vinyls.)
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### Author:  [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2024, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-don-t-understand-the-craze-for-vinyl/952923/245 "2024-03-28T00:03:39Z")
> [@digs](#):
>
> so that it would recognize, say, Neil Young’s “Comes a Time” CD, and automatically skip “Motorcycle Mama”?
I love “Comes A Time”, and I know that “Motorcycle Mama” is a silly, primitive song that doesn’t fit on the album, but I love many of Neil’s silly and primitive songs, so also this one.
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### Author:  [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2024, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-don-t-understand-the-craze-for-vinyl/952923/246 "2024-03-28T11:07:54Z")
Yes, I’ve done that! Sometimes, the two posts, though separated by weeks or even months, are almost identical. At other times, something I learned during that time interval caused me to modify or even change my outlook on that particular subject.
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### Author:  [@ColdBrew50](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ColdBrew50)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2024, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-don-t-understand-the-craze-for-vinyl/952923/247 "2024-04-06T03:50:53Z")
> [@Jasmine](#):
>
> Well, 226 posts into this discussion hasn’t changed my mind. “My mind” is that this “craze” doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense to me for the same compelling reasons I had in October of 2021.
Well, that’s a good point, and if you’re able to find the recordings you desire on digital media or even in a second-hand store, then you are fortunate.
I’d like that pretty good David Newman album called _The Weapon._ I borrowed it to a “friend” who insists she returned it to me. Damn well not. Exists on leTube, but whatever.
I’d also like Duncan Swift’s recordings of improvisations upon Joplin and Morton’s tunes in a format which doesn’t degrade everytime I touch the stylus to it or let dust settle on it."
The list goes on, including way OOP things that were released on CD but which have become damaged.
There’s no “craze,” lady. Just not everything is “out” in digital form. It should be, but audio engineers are expensive, and master tapes don’t exist in many or most cases.
Beyond that, meh, who cares…some kid can have their Beastie record in custom blue acetate or whatever.
Choose LP or CD, buying new? I’d go LP now, every time. Can’t be doing foolish nonsense like ripping every single new purchase to an array of drives, when I can be sure the LP will survive a housefire as well as I will, namely, not at all.
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### Author:  [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2024, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-don-t-understand-the-craze-for-vinyl/952923/248 "2024-04-06T15:58:12Z")
> [@ColdBrew50](#):
>
> There’s no “craze,” lady. Just not everything is “out” in digital form. It should be, but audio engineers are expensive, and master tapes don’t exist in many or most cases.
That’s not really what’s being talked about though. “Craze” is referring to the purchase of new albums in vinyl (or re-releases of older albums in a vinyl format for new purchasing). Why someone would want a turntable to play old obscure music only available on vinyl is sort of self-answering. Though one would hope you’d also convert it to a newer format so it’s not lost forever in said house fire or eaten by vinyl beetles.
> [@ColdBrew50](#):
>
> Choose LP or CD, buying new? I’d go LP now, every time.
Just about everyone would probably agree with that. Vinyl has the whole physicality to it that CD lacks and your vinyl hisses and whatnot. Totally fair to not give a shit about those things or think people are weird to care about them but at least it’s a reason. CD (in my opinion) is just a landfill packing method of transferring digital files these days. Multiple people have mentioned that a significant part of the delta between vinyl and CD sales isn’t a craze for vinyl but rather the collapse in demand for CDs.
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### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2024, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-don-t-understand-the-craze-for-vinyl/952923/249 "2024-04-06T20:04:30Z")
Many people feel a stronger connection to analog music. The imperfections can give a warmer sound.
A record player and older analog amp still sounds great.
Digital sound is so perfect and sterile. Especially modern music that is pitch corrected and the beat is set to a click. All so perfect and most of the human elements are gone.
It does vary by the artist and genre. Some music sounds great on digital. There’s no noticeable benefit to pressing it on vinyl.
I noticed pitch correction in Billy Joel’s recent single _Turn the Lights Back On_. His live performance on the Grammys sounds better to me. Billy Joel is a legendary vocalist that uses slides to create emotion. His pitch corrected single snaps every note to the exact frequency. Taking away what Billy Joel is trying to achieve.
Lights is out on a limited edition vinyl. I want to buy it. I hope it’s not pitched corrected. That’s a decision made by the producers and label.
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### Author:  [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)
#### Post date: [April 8, 2024, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-don-t-understand-the-craze-for-vinyl/952923/250 "2024-04-08T11:14:39Z")
> [@Jophiel](#):
>
> Though one would hope you’d also convert it to a newer format so it’s not lost forever in said house fire or eaten by vinyl beetles.
You’re kidding about the beetles, right? 😳
If not, you could end up having the beetles eat the Beatles. LOL
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [April 8, 2024, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-don-t-understand-the-craze-for-vinyl/952923/251 "2024-04-08T13:08:09Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> Lights is out on a limited edition vinyl. I want to buy it. I hope it’s not pitched corrected.
Of course it will be! It’s the same source material.
They didn’t record the performance directly to vinyl and make duplicate pressings. The performance was, I am sure, recorded on a digital recorder, not analog tape. So it starts out “cold and unfeeling”, as does all modern recorded music.
As an aside, I never understand this feeling about “human error” in music. Do you think Beethoven, or especially Mozart, wanted people to make mistakes playing their music? No! They obsessed over every note, and they expected the players to play exactly what was written. (Of course, they know they won’t, but they wanted it as perfect as possible).
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### Author:  [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2024, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-don-t-understand-the-craze-for-vinyl/952923/252 "2024-04-09T18:16:04Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#):
>
> They didn’t record the performance directly to vinyl and make duplicate pressings. The performance was, I am sure, recorded on a digital recorder, not analog tape. So it starts out “cold and unfeeling”, as does all modern recorded music.
I’m afraid it’s actually quite a bit more complex than that … there was ALWAYS local “colorit”, most noticable japanese versions were more punchy than others … (of course only on albums sold globally)
And then there were also different masters for CD and vinyl and possbly cassette (even in the mid 1980ies) … b/c CDs could reproduce more bass than vinyl can do, (too much bass on vinyl and the sylus gets thrown off) …
So for a global production you might have had a UK, German, US and Japan master … (and that was before the whole re-mastering craze …)
yep … a can of worms - and for most classic albums there is a “preferred” master - e.g. the japanese-triangle-LP seems to be the most preferred original version of dark side of the moon
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### Author:  [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2024, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-don-t-understand-the-craze-for-vinyl/952923/253 "2024-04-10T00:40:11Z")
Interesting, and nerdy, insight into cutting a record…this thread seems an apt place to put it. Though I suppose it could have it’s own thread, if the mods prefer.
[The Limitation's of Vinyl Records](https://www.cutadub.com/limitations-of-vinyl#:~:text=The%20first%20limitation%20is%20recording,analogue%20of%20a%20sound%20wave).
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### Author:  [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2024, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-don-t-understand-the-craze-for-vinyl/952923/254 "2024-04-10T03:13:24Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#):
>
> As an aside, I never understand this feeling about “human error” in music. Do you think Beethoven, or especially Mozart, wanted people to make mistakes playing their music? No! They obsessed over every note, and they expected the players to play exactly what was written. (Of course, they know they won’t, but they wanted it as perfect as possible).
Especially with the human voice, a great deal of the reason you’re listening to a particular performer is due to the vagaries of how they perform or their embellishment of the song. Their variations on pitch are often expressive, and I wouldn’t call it an ‘error’ when someone does this, just a variation. If they actually made what they saw as a mistake, they’d do another take or apply a studio “trick” to cover it. Who knows, maybe Joel really didn’t like his take and didn’t feel like trying another one.
In comparison, a MIDI file doesn’t really make any mistakes, but it’s also often not very interesting to listen to by itself unless it has those expressive variances coded into it or into the synth it’s controlling.
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