Can anyone explain the vinyl renaissance?

[Robin L]

Tell me where this marketing is?
I have yet to see it.
Sounds like a baseless rant.

You're soaking in it!

 

[Cote Dazur]

When I visited last Christmas I finally managed to persuade them that it would sound a lot better if they moved the speakers out from under the coffee table…

This is priceless, to me, thank you for sharing.
this is not related to the OP, but please allow me a little escapade.
As "serious" audiophile, we do that, don't we? Give advice to people around us on how to best enjoy their music, as we see it.
It makes me smile as I do it to, even though I try not to anymore.
The funny part is that, as "serious" audiophile, we "know" that one does not put speakers under coffee tables, but depending on what those speakers are and on where those speakers will end up in the room, they may or may not provide a more pleasing music to your sister.
Even, when asked for advice, I now try to refrain, except if I speak to an other "serious" audiophile, but the temptation sometime is too strong to resist.

 

[dasdoing]

Having a big square foot of real estate for the cover photos doesn't hurt.

I started buying audio stuff around 1990. I would buy vinyl and CDs. iirc the deciding factor was actualy the price lol (I was a teen). when I moved across the ocean I had no problem leaving everything behind. The only LP I kind of would like to have here now is a Jackson 5 LP called Get It Together. loved the cover

 

[sq225917]

I buy more vinyl than digital. I don't stream but have a largish digital library, 1500+ albums. Digital is great, it's mobile compact doesn't cost much to get great sound quality, but. It's expenditure on convenience, I have a physical attachment to vinyl records I mostly purchase them in store, I have to handle the artifact, I have to take care of it, so I'm far more emotionally invested in it than I am with something I download and slap on an sd card or a hard drive.

Sure, the bass is mono, there's surface noise, it rotates at about the right speed most of the time. But there's usually more sympathetic mastering, it's not eqd for lowest common denominator playback and as far as ownership goes I actually own the artifact and that pleases me, and puts decent money in the artists pocket, which makes being a musician who doesn't sell millions of records or have bazillions of streams a possibility and that drives variety in music and I'm good with that.

Sure, my cart cost 4x what my dac costs, but honestly in terms of sound quality I think it's 50/50, some albums sound better on digital, some on vinyl it's down to the mastering.

 

[MattHooper]

I can. It is called marketing. People are primed to think vinyl records are special and magical. They will restore the emotional connection with the music and make you feel young or cool or even both. You are not like everyone else, you buy and you own your music. You enjoy much higher quality. Streaming can never be as good as vinyl records, because is modern and easy. But you, you are not like them, you have no issue to spend money on craftsmanship and quality. You are not just mindlessly skipping tracks. You put a record on and listen carefully with your amazing ears and brains and drink something posh while you doing it. After 20 Minutes you stand up and turn the record around and think how special your emotional bond with the real, tangible music is. The vague and posh wording especially around vinyl contributes to the feeling of specialness and exclusivity. Also the Music selection …. You don‘t listen to electronic music, this is for the masses, your music comes from the 60s and older.

Expensive Cartridges, Needles, Belts that wear out and need to be replaced by skilled technicians. This ensures business for people selling and maintaining equipmen.

Expansive, difficult to copy media that wears out ensures business for the record labels.

Expensive Gear and Musik keeps you going to work. Going to work gives you purpose in life. You can identify as professional worker and be snarky about how special and unique professional worker you are. You can look down at those other, mindless, lesser beings that just stream music.

It’s a win for everyone.

Well, the important thing is you've found a way to feel superior to us shallow, vain dupes.

Congrats.

 

[iv0]

Well, the important thing is you've found a way to feel superior to us shallow, vain dupes.

Congrats.

You misunderstood, I don’t feel, I am!

 

[iv0]

I buy more vinyl than digital. I don't stream but have a largish digital library, 1500+ albums. Digital is great, it's mobile compact doesn't cost much to get great sound quality, but. It's expenditure on convenience, I have a physical attachment to vinyl records I mostly purchase them in store, I have to handle the artifact, I have to take care of it, so I'm far more emotionally invested in it than I am with something I download and slap on an sd card or a hard drive.

Sure, the bass is mono, there's surface noise, it rotates at about the right speed most of the time. But there's usually more sympathetic mastering, it's not eqd for lowest common denominator playback and as far as ownership goes I actually own the artifact and that pleases me, and puts decent money in the artists pocket, which makes being a musician who doesn't sell millions of records or have bazillions of streams a possibility and that drives variety in music and I'm good with that.

Sure, my cart cost 4x what my dac costs, but honestly in terms of sound quality I think it's 50/50, some albums sound better on digital, some on vinyl it's down to the mastering.

Thats fine, I don‘t judge just commenting on why vinyl is experiencing resurection.

 

[IPunchCholla]

Thats fine, I don‘t judge just commenting on why vinyl is experiencing resurection.

You didn’t explain. You opined. Without a shred of evidence. And did so in a way that implied (rather than stated, presumably so you wouldn’t be held to the claim) that there is one reason, that reason is marketing, and everyone who buys vinyl is only buying it because they are manipulated by that marketing. But you don’t judge.

 

[iv0]

You didn’t explain. You opined. Without a shred of evidence. And did so in a way that implied (rather than stated, presumably so you wouldn’t be held to the claim) that there is one reason, that reason is marketing, and everyone who buys vinyl is only buying it because they are manipulated by that marketing. But you don’t judge.

No. My statement is based on deep understanding of the psychological state of the modern human or groups of humans. It is not an opinion, its a fact.

There is lots of evidence to support my observation also in other areas of modern life.

And, yes I don‘t judge. If it provides you pleasure and doesn’t negatively impact me, everybody is free to go ahead. I don‘t have high expectations of humanity, so I don’t care -> don’t judge. Just provide insight.

 

[killdozzer]

I can. It is called marketing. People are primed to think vinyl records are special and magical. They will restore the emotional connection with the music and make you feel young or cool or even both. You are not like everyone else, you buy and you own your music. You enjoy much higher quality. Streaming can never be as good as vinyl records, because is modern and easy. But you, you are not like them, you have no issue to spend money on craftsmanship and quality. You are not just mindlessly skipping tracks. You put a record on and listen carefully with your amazing ears and brains and drink something posh while you doing it. After 20 Minutes you stand up and turn the record around and think how special your emotional bond with the real, tangible music is. The vague and posh wording especially around vinyl contributes to the feeling of specialness and exclusivity. Also the Music selection …. You don‘t listen to electronic music, this is for the masses, your music comes from the 60s and older.

Expensive Cartridges, Needles, Belts that wear out and need to be replaced by skilled technicians. This ensures business for people selling and maintaining equipmen.

Expansive, difficult to copy media that wears out ensures business for the record labels.

Expensive Gear and Musik keeps you going to work. Going to work gives you purpose in life. You can identify as professional worker and be snarky about how special and unique professional worker you are. You can look down at those other, mindless, lesser beings that just stream music.

It’s a win for everyone.

I'd call this award wining post. It doesn't cover the entirety, but I believe it casts some light on an important aspect. It's very close to how Matt Hooper described his relation to records (although maybe it's not and some miscommunication occurred, I may be wrong).

I've been reading answers and waiting for something other than the ordinary list of: sleeve, tangible, better to me, tactile, owning, but as @JP said; "It could be a fun topic to try to decompose if everyone wasn't so interested in projecting their positions, and dying on those hills."
(And yes, I know he meant me as well, but I'll take my liberty to disagree because I didn't really yet project my position. As a side note I WILL say I'm somewhat sorry that @dkinric didn't respond to my answer to his thread, cause that's where I honestly spoke about what fascinates me about the turntable technology and gave my position).

I read some very interesting answers like new generations of collectors merging their collecting hobby with their music listening and I read the entire paper shared by @SIY which in my opinion describes preference wonderfully and it's a great article (thanks SIY), but I'm not convinced it can account for increase in sales. There must be some force to push the sales and an market that reacts to this force. We should be able to see people; starting to buy records that didn't before, starting to buy more records that before and/or going back to buying records after a pause.

Why I think the above is an award winning post is because I think it decodes the message behind today's (but, it's TODAY'S) records marketing:

If you think about it, at their peak records weren't the better choice, they didn't compete, there was no challenger (I kindly ask you not to go down the R2R rabbit hole, yes it could've sounded better, but manufacturing light years of tape for all those global top sellers is just not viable IME).

So the records were neutral. It was simply a way music was accessible. They were a given and one might say that all modern streaming listeners would be mere records buyers at the time when that medium ruled.

Today they have all these labels of a "better choice". And this is very important. Today they are competing with digital and you choose them as a substitute for the mainstream medium. It's today that they are a choice that says a lot about you and who you are. About how you care for music more than average listeners. About how it's soulful and not soulless and thus how you're soulful. How it promotes close(r) relationship to the art and artists. How shortcomings even make it better and how those more special among us will understand this magic. You'll hear it again and again; it's not a way (one of many) but the way or the special way to listen to music.

Again, marketing simply found a way to connect it to the libidinal or use the product as an extension of one's ego that is universally being groomed today anyway. Buying a record is a statement of one's heft and value and it is regularly stated very loudly.

Today, you are actually picking among the two most readily available and this is much different from it's days of glory when it was just a way music was disseminated.

This made me realize why I don't really care all that much for an average vinyl-wanker (important thing being that not all people who like to listen to records are vinyl-wankers). You'll notice that the way it's being promoted is very close to overpriced cables. It's about the refined, sensitive souls with those ears of gold, those that care more, those that have all those high end resolving systems, those who endlessly fret when they think Norah Jones sounds a bit flat and go on to change the cartridge, who are moved/touched by music on a higher plane and so on. Again, as so many times before and with many other products, it's not about the product, but about you and what the product says about you.

Since marketing is doing this from day one and it started doing it with records as well and since audience today is very prone to this type of connecting to products, I'd say it must play a significant role in higher sales.

 

[killdozzer]

You didn’t explain. You opined. Without a shred of evidence. And did so in a way that implied (rather than stated, presumably so you wouldn’t be held to the claim) that there is one reason, that reason is marketing, and everyone who buys vinyl is only buying it because they are manipulated by that marketing. But you don’t judge.

I didn't understand it that way. Since we're talking about the increase in specific, than it doesn't cover the regular record lovers.

 

[Robin L]

I'd call this award wining post. It doesn't cover the entirety, but I believe it casts some light on an important aspect. It's very close to how Matt Hooper described his relation to records (although maybe it's not and some miscommunication occurred, I may be wrong).

I've been reading answers and waiting for something other than the ordinary list of: sleeve, tangible, better to me, tactile, owning, but as @JP said; "It could be a fun topic to try to decompose if everyone wasn't so interested in projecting their positions, and dying on those hills."
(And yes, I know he meant me as well, but I'll take my liberty to disagree because I didn't really yet project my position. As a side note I WILL say I'm somewhat sorry that @dkinric didn't respond to my answer to his thread, cause that's where I honestly spoke about what fascinates me about the turntable technology and gave my position).

I read some very interesting answers like new generations of collectors merging their collecting hobby with their music listening and I read the entire paper shared by @SIY which in my opinion describes preference wonderfully and it's a great article (thanks SIY), but I'm not convinced it can account for increase in sales. There must be some force to push the sales and an market that reacts to this force. We should be able to see people; starting to buy records that didn't before, starting to buy more records that before and/or going back to buying records after a pause.

Why I think the above is an award winning post is because I think it decodes the message behind today's (but, it's TODAY'S) records marketing:

If you think about it, at their peak records weren't the better choice, they didn't compete, there was no challenger (I kindly ask you not to go down the R2R rabbit hole, yes it could've sounded better, but manufacturing light years of tape for all those global top sellers is just not viable IME).

So the records were neutral. It was simply a way music was accessible. They were a given and one might say that all modern streaming listeners would be mere records buyers at the time when that medium ruled.

Today they have all these labels of a "better choice". And this is very important. Today they are competing with digital and you choose them as a substitute for the mainstream medium. It's today that they are a choice that says a lot about you and who you are. About how you care for music more than average listeners. About how it's soulful and not soulless and thus how you're soulful. How it promotes close(r) relationship to the art and artists. How shortcomings even make it better and how those more special among us will understand this magic. You'll hear it again and again; it's not a way (one of many) but the way or the special way to listen to music.

Again, marketing simply found a way to connect it to the libidinal or use the product as an extension of one's ego that is universally being groomed today anyway. Buying a record is a statement of one's heft and value and it is regularly stated very loudly.

Today, you are actually picking among the two most readily available and this is much different from it's days of glory when it was just a way music was disseminated.

This made me realize why I don't really care all that much for an average vinyl-wanker (important thing being that not all people who like to listen to records are vinyl-wankers). You'll notice that the way it's being promoted is very close to overpriced cables. It's about the refined, sensitive souls with those ears of gold, those that care more, those that have all those high end resolving systems, those who endlessly fret when they think Norah Jones sounds a bit flat and go on to change the cartridge, who are moved/touched by music on a higher plane and so on. Again, as so many times before and with many other products, it's not about the product, but about you and what the product says about you.

Since marketing is doing this from day one and it started doing it with records as well and since audience today is very prone to this type of connecting to products, I'd say it must play a significant role in higher sales.

One thing that relates---the use of turntables in movies, TV, ads for other products, signifying "this person must be serious about music." One never sees that involving the true high end of audio [performance-wise, as in measurements] because that stuff simply isn't photogenic---a pile of blinking black boxes usually indicates that something is about to blow up. Now picture, if you will, a Topping stack. Just about everything about high-end turntables is photogenic and suggests ritual, but the highest performance audio gear is visually boring.

 

[MattHooper]

No. My statement is based on deep understanding of the psychological state of the modern human or groups of humans. It is not an opinion, its a fact.

There is lots of evidence to support my observation also in other areas of modern life.

And, yes I don‘t judge. If it provides you pleasure and doesn’t negatively impact me, everybody is free to go ahead. I don‘t have high expectations of humanity, so I don’t care -> don’t judge. Just provide insight.

We welcome your keen grasp on psychology

Here's some more psychological insight:

The obvious inference is that you are not a vinyl enthusiast, given you have basically painted a belittling picture of other people's vanity, self-worth and shallow motivations being haplessly manipulated.

But...not you. You haven't, like a sucker, fallen for this fad. You can see the forest for the trees. That's for "the other guy." It must be very reassuring.

This is what I meant by people giving hot takes on a phenomenon they aren't really seeking to understand because they themselves find little value in it. So, they will tend to lazily ascribe shallow motivations or disparage the "reasons" someone else must be in to it.

 

[levimax]

I can. It is called marketing. People are primed to think vinyl records are special and magical. They will restore the emotional connection with the music and make you feel young or cool or even both. You are not like everyone else, you buy and you own your music. You enjoy much higher quality. Streaming can never be as good as vinyl records, because is modern and easy. But you, you are not like them, you have no issue to spend money on craftsmanship and quality. You are not just mindlessly skipping tracks. You put a record on and listen carefully with your amazing ears and brains and drink something posh while you doing it. After 20 Minutes you stand up and turn the record around and think how special your emotional bond with the real, tangible music is. The vague and posh wording especially around vinyl contributes to the feeling of specialness and exclusivity. Also the Music selection …. You don‘t listen to electronic music, this is for the masses, your music comes from the 60s and older.

Expensive Cartridges, Needles, Belts that wear out and need to be replaced by skilled technicians. This ensures business for people selling and maintaining equipmen.

Expansive, difficult to copy media that wears out ensures business for the record labels.

Expensive Gear and Musik keeps you going to work. Going to work gives you purpose in life. You can identify as professional worker and be snarky about how special and unique professional worker you are. You can look down at those other, mindless, lesser beings that just stream music.

It’s a win for everyone.

Marketing needs to have a big interested industry behind it in order to spend the required money to make an impression and change behavior. The LP revival started on it's own with used records which only benefited some small independent stores, the music industry abandoned marketing LP's decades ago. As the LP revival gained steam it is used by other companies as part of their life style imagery to sell their products, it reminds me of surfing where few people do it but it is used to advertise other lifestyle products while no money is spent marketing surfboards. Also like surfing collecting and playing LP's is just plain fun and it would exist with or without all the lifestyle advertising of other products. My answer to the OP's question is simple "because it is fun".

 

[JP]

I've been reading answers and waiting for something other than the ordinary list of: sleeve, tangible, better to me, tactile, owning, but as @JP said; "It could be a fun topic to try to decompose if everyone wasn't so interested in projecting their positions, and dying on those hills."
(And yes, I know he meant me as well, but I'll take my liberty to disagree because I didn't really yet project my position. As a side note I WILL say I'm somewhat sorry that @dkinric didn't respond to my answer to his thread, cause that's where I honestly spoke about what fascinates me about the turntable technology and gave my position).

If you like the footwear, I'm certainly not going to stop you, but I actually didn't have you in mind when I wrote that.

Attempts have been made to drill down on the topic before, which is what I actually had in mind when writing that, that brought out the pitchforks. I see it just happened again a couple posts up.

I find it very odd, or telling, that the desire for a more thorough understanding is being labeled as skepticism.

"I find I listen to whole albums on LPs..." is probably the simplest one to decompose if one considers the drastic change in behavior that typically accompanies that sentiment, the shift in focus that change in behavior forces, and a bit about neurotransmitters. This can also illuminate why some people are more susceptible to this phenomenon than others.

If we move the goalposts back to where this train of conversation started, you'd said the goal was to accurately identify motivation. I'll ask again, what does accurate mean to you? I'll also ask again, have you read that paper?

Probing the "whys" doesn't make a discussion more unwieldy, if anything moving beyond shallow reasoning should allow a more focused discussion. Regardless I find it far more interesting than the endless regurgitation of the popular cliches, irrespective of how much vigor is put behind each volley.

 

[xaxxon]

You can't show off what you have accumulated unless there is scarcity. Vinyl creates artificial scarcity so people can brag about it. No one can brag about having a streaming account on amazon.

 

[JP]

Marketing needs to have a big interested industry behind it in order to spend the required money to make an impression and change behavior.

There's a tremendous amount of effective and cheap marketing at play here. Take a look at how many YouTube channels are about the latest, greatest, limited reissue that's coming out. Hang out on FB a bit if you can stomach it. Looks at various forums, in particular SHF. The entire industry has an extremely effective FOMO campaign going on - they've nailed it.

 

[iv0]

We welcome your keen grasp on psychology

Here's some more psychological insight:

The obvious inference is that you are not a vinyl enthusiast, given you have basically painted a belittling picture of other people's vanity, self-worth and shallow motivations being haplessly manipulated.

But...not you. You haven't, like a sucker, fallen for this fad. You can see the forest for the trees. That's for "the other guy." It must be very reassuring.

This is what I meant by people giving hot takes on a phenomenon they aren't really seeking to understand because they themselves find little value in it. So, they will tend to lazily ascribe shallow motivations or disparage the "reasons" someone else must be in to it.

Please don‘t put words in my mouth. I never said anyone is a sucker. I can assume now that deep down you feel like a sucker, and my post triggers an anger response .

I just posted an objective observation. I specifically wrote: I don’t judge this hobby and the people. If its fun for you, go for it. I don‘t have high expectations of people, so don‘t feel any pressure.

I can also state some other facts about possible led contamination of records and other environmental impact of producing physical media. But because of the low volume of the market this doesn’t really matter globally.

 

[levimax]

There's a tremendous amount of effective and cheap marketing at play here. Take a look at how many YouTube channels are about the latest, greatest, limited reissue that's coming out. Hang out on FB a bit if you can stomach it. Looks at various forums, in particular SHF. The entire industry has an extremely effective FOMO campaign going on - they've nailed it.

I see some of what you are saying but who/what is the "entire industry" that is benefiting? Even now the number of LP's sold is not a huge deal to the large record companies (most LP sales are of used items). The main beneficiaries are small specialty records companies, small LP pressing plants, small independent record stores, sellers on eBay and Discogs and recently the TT and cart / stylus sellers which only recently got going after the vintage market could not satisfy the demand. While these parties all benefit together they are not organized in a way that they can orchestrate a sophisticated marketing campaign. Maybe I'm not being cynical enough but the vinyl revival appears to be a "grass roots" movement that got pushed along by social media and then picked up on by large lifestyle brands to sell their products.... none of which could have happened without there being some underlying consumer needs being met.

 

[JP]

While these parties all benefit together they are not organized in a way that they can orchestrate a sophisticated marketing campaign.

There’s no need to orchestrate a sophisticated campaign, and I doubt a sophisticated campaign could ever be worthwhile. This is simply recognizing when planets are aligning and fanning the flames.