Vinyl Revival Stumps Digital Age
Vinyl records, the kind that we here at Vinyl Bay 777 love
to frame, study, and spin, are undoubtedly technology from last century. In an era where a gadget the size of your
hand can store half a terabyte of data, translating into thousands of songs
spanning hundreds of albums, it sounds almost quaint that physically
distributed music – cold, hard media such as Compact Disks and magnetic tape -
could stand up to digital downloads.
With electronic audio formats such as MP3's dominating in the cost,
storage space, quality and, sadly, ease-of-piracy categories, the only leg left
for solid media to stand on is the value of touch. Surprisingly for many who don't work with us
at Vinyl Bay 777, the soft grooves of vinyl records have managed to provide
physical media a grip on the sales charts long after their supposed death at
the hands of CD's.
According
to Wikipedia, global sales in Vinyl have skyrocketed from around $55 million
in 2007 to $171 million in 2012. $55
million of that growth came between 2011 and 2012 alone. This resurrection of a media form once
written off as dead is being called the “Vinyl Revival,” a term popularized in
part by Britain's The
Independent's use of the term in their 2012 article, The Rapacity Of The
Record Revival.
Part of the reason for the Vinyl Revival's success has been
its status symbol as part of collector-edition
sets for groups like the Foo Fighters, or pre-order packages for bands
like Silversun Pickups. In the case
of pre-order packages, sometimes an MP3 copy of the album is included with the
purchase, merging digital and physical distribution. Collectors can hold on to their
mint-condition vinyl albums and still listen to the music they bought! Plus, no amount of internet uploading can
duplicate a physical object, so sales officials can rest assured that they will
get an excellent mark-up on their merchandise even if the MP3 files find their
way to a torrent site.
Speaking to The Independent in its Record Revival
article, Sean Bidder, the creative director of Vinyl Foundry, argued that it
was worth “another few pounds” to create a vinyl album because of its superior
“quality and craftsmanship.” We at Vinyl
Bay 777 completely agree. We love
feeling the velvety grooves of our albums, and that's why we got into the
industry.
The Vinyl Revival is about
more than just sales figures: It's about
craftsmanship, nostalgia, and good tunes along the way!
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