It’s really great because I can find the music videos I used to watch as a kid on MTV in their entirety there.
And I can find live versions of the songs as well. And acoustic versions. And extended mix versions. And other groups and individuals uploading their own cover versions of varying quality.
Plus I can listen to songs from my favorite groups from the
albums that I never bought for free (like Metallica’s work post-1995 that got mixed reviews).
I hated it when you were recording off the radio, you finally hear the intro of that song you’ve been trying to get for weeks, you press the ‘record’ button, and the DJ then decides to tell a funny story over the first 30 seconds of the song.
I already mentioned a recent concert where the (new) album was being sold on LP. No CD. Collector’s/promotional item? Perhaps. All of that music is available on multiple digital platforms anyway, including YouTube. But it shows that LPs are not considered obsolete but CDs are, at least by that one organiser. Not the idea of CD-quality digital music, but the shelf full of discs when those exact same files can be stored on a portable drive (2 TB pocket SSD is around $200 atm) or streamed (random Youtube audio may be 128 kb/s AAC but you can find better than that, maybe even the CD mix or better, if you pay some money. Anyway they were not handing out CDs.
Yes, listening via turntable definitely has a different feel - it’s in a different part of the house in my “office” (which is half of the den, really, but it has a desk), so when I go to pay bills or do other work online I throw on a record and it feels like its own thing.
I’m 62 and so am of the vintage that my teenage record collection included early 1960 recordings moving forwards into the early 1980’s, when I almost completely stopped buying vinyl.
You want robust? The LPs from the mid- to late-1960s. No clue about outside of the USA, but domestic pressings were pretty thick vinyl. I happen to be a huge fan of the prog rock group Yes. The 1971 LPs are notably thicker than the 1980 release of “Drama” by this band.
No clue as to overseas pressings. Any Dopers still game to post into this thread from the UK, Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, Australia etc have info?
The only things I really miss about LPs are full-sized cover art and liner notes. Most CD liner notes are so tiny I need at least 2x magnifying glasses to read. And, a mini-version of something like the Man’s Map Of Wales fold out from “Be Good To Yourself At Least Once A Day” just doesn’t cut it.
Modern vinyl still varies. I have some recent pressings that are “normal” and some that feel like they could stop a bullet. Perhaps it’s a function of vinyl being a luxury/collector sort of product now but I own several standard length albums that are pressed onto twin 200 gram vinyl discs with 2-3 songs per side. Other albums are a more traditional 150 gram single disc with 5-6 tracks per side. I almost prefer the standard since it takes up less space in the rack but I’d guess that at least 50% of the albums we own are twin discs despite not being double-length albums.
One of them, I want to say it’s Jenny Lewis’ Acid Tongue, is rather obnoxiously spread across three vinyl sides with Disc 2 Side B just being blank and a message: “Do Not Play This Side”.
I’m not a retro enthusiast, but I still have a lot of albums and a functioning turntable. One of the things that has surprised me about the resurgence of vinyl is that a few labels have heavily promoted their releases as using 100% recycled material. That’s nice, but it used to be the case that we wanted “virgin vinyl” LPs. Using recycled vinyl (basically ground up records that were returned to the label) was bad, bad, bad. There were more surface defects and noise when recycled vinyl was used for pressing.
I have no idea what steps are taken that might make new “recycled” LPs better than those old ones.
(Columbia House and many of the “sign up and get 10 free albums” clubs were notorious for pressing albums using recycled vinyl.)
I 100% agree. We lost something on both counts there.
I’ll also add there is just something more…fun?..satisfying?..with the ritual of sliding the LP out of its sleeve, checking it for dust and putting it on the turntable and ever-so-carefully putting the stylus down. Not to mention just seeing the record spinning and the stylus bobbing up and down with the slight imperfections.
MP3s and CDs simply do not provide that added enjoyment.
And I say that as someone who no longer owns a turntable or an LP. I just like them.
If people (really) understood the relative sound quality of vinyl vs… mp3/streaming, they wouldn’t be buying vinyl to begin with. The entire premise of the vinyl resurgence is that people who are buying vinyl today are liable to misunderstand how it affects sound quality.
Or, to the OP’s point, they’re people who hear “LPs [having their basis in an obsolete technology] have been obsolete for such a long time” and their response is “Nuh’uh! Vinyl sounds better!” Only it doesn’t. Unless you like the gradual distortion and degradation of the sound quality.
Vinyl is seeing a bit of a rebound because it’s “hip.” Not unlike the (more pervasive) myth of sustainable plastics through recycling.
I think many say they enjoy the slight imperfections.
It’s like listening to a recording where you can hear the guitarist slide their fingers over the rough strings. Many would see that as a defect. Others see that as enjoyable.
I’m not a vinyl collector, but I’ve watched unboxings and stuff—so maybe this is biased. But I have seen a lot of novelty pressings that use color or holograms or other things to stand out a bit. It makes sense to me since a lot of vinyl is meant to be collected and not played. I’ve heard of them shipping with digital files to play, even.
I had trouble with new records that were already warped.
Watching the tone arm rising up and down and hoping it didn’t skip is my memory of records
I remember reading about the pressing of vinyl records. It was possible to get much better fidelity. Many of the Symphonic records had limited pressings.
Pop music and rock were churned out on the most inexpensive vinyl and worn master discs.
One of the (many) things I had to deal with in college was the continual requests from people for help in fixing their warped LPs. I had a very good method for doing this that I had used from time to time. Once others found out I could do it, everybody came out of the woodwork and would show up at my place with (literally) stacks of warped albums asking me to fix them. I played along for a couple months, but finally gave up and actually posted a sheet of paper on my door stating that I wasn’t in the business of flattening warped albums and wishing them good luck.
Now that I think about it, the sign on the door wasn’t that polite.
Two Encyclopedias were heavy enough to press a record flat.
I set mine out on the patio table with several heavy books on top. Needed a Sunny Spring day when it was about 80F. Enough heat to let the vinyl flatten without ruining it.
I had a DiscWasher to clean and antistatic the record.
100% of my at home music listening is streaming. I go to well over 150 live music performances per year. I’ve never bought vinyl but vinyl is nearly ubiquitous at merch booths these days from bands touring at 200 capacity clubs to arena tours. Vinyl outsells CDs by a large number (of course a lot of the reason for this is CDs have completely tanked).
LPs are far from obsolete and sales continue to increase. Maybe this is a trend that will end but not any time soon.
That’s assuming that the primary driver is sound quality and not collecting, nostalgia, mechanical tinkering or other things people say they like about playing vinyl. I’m not an audiophile and certainly don’t think any one way is THE way to listen to music. I wouldn’t say that vinyl is a superior way to listen to music from an audio waveform standpoint. I like it for other reasons.
Though I don’t really hear much “imperfection” in modern new albums anyway. And the older used ones that have noticeable amounts feel as though they’ve earned it as part of the experience.
Colored albums are pretty common these days. I don’t think they’re solely meant to be collected though, in some cases, the colors are meant to make them collectable. In other words, they play fine and I wouldn’t notice with my eyes closed that it’s a vinyl album pressed in rose pink rather than black. But releasing an album in three different colors gives the True Fans something to FOMO and overspend over.
I do own one “novelty” type album in clear plastic with graphics and yadda yadda and wish I just had the standard version instead as this one takes up a lot of space and is less convenient to play. I still feel like the intent is to play it since, otherwise, the only time anyone is going to see the graphics is if you pin it to the wall.
I don’t think my wife and I have had any issue with new albums being warped with one exception: a Maggie Rogers album that looked like a carnival ride. It sat under a couple thick tomes and a 5lb handweight for several weeks and is much better now. I think the thicker 180/200 gram vinyl is supposed to be more warp resistant but, since warping isn’t a big thing in our collection anyway, I don’t have much of a sample size.
My wife was the catalyst for our collection and the turntable is nominally “hers”. She is less of an audiophile than I am (which, again, I’m not) and enjoys the vinyl thing for the collecting aspect, physical handling of the media and finds that playing a full album helps get her into a more relaxed state in a way that doesn’t happen with trying to stream an album. I’m a little amused at how fussy she can be over the cleaning and mechanical aspects since she’s not that way with any other physical gadgetry. Then the fun of browsing stores, visiting new stores and the warm fuzzies of coming across something you remember from your high school days. Throwing an album up on Spotify doesn’t hit the same.
