Reviving Vinyl

When I was a kid, I would look at vinyl records and think that they were prehistoric artifacts and belonged in the bowels of a museum. Tapes and CD controlled the music market and people purchased what was smaller and more portable. Eventually MP3's and Ipod's took over what used to be CD, and Vinyl Records were at the bottom of a really long time line of different musical media.



Within recent years, vinyl has been born again and has received a surge of popularity. More and more musical artists are pressing their albums onto records and more and more people are purchasing them. Between 2006 and 2007, vinyl sales have increased 85.8% and between 2007 & 2008 they increased in 89%. Some bands will release material exclusively to vinyl that can't be purchased in any other format to increase the popularity in vinyl. Conor Oberst recently released his "Gentleman's Pact" EP in only a vinyl format. Pearl Jam recently reissued their album "Ten" in a deluxe vinyl box set that contained multiple versions of the album on different records.




Although a record player takes up about as much space as a thousand Ipods, the sound quality of a vinyl record surpasses that of an MP3 music file. A digital recording does not capture the complete soundwave that a vinyl record contains.

There are many positives to purchasing a record instead of a CD or online digital copy. You receive much larger album artwork, the album itself has better sound quality, and there is something about watching a record spin that really makes the whole experience much better.