Can anyone explain the vinyl renaissance?

[MattHooper]

On Marketing:

Of course marketing is going to be part of the equation.

When a desire arises, markets arise and cater to the new market. Hence...you'll see marketing involved. Much of the stuff people buy on this forum have marketing involved. Doesn't entail everyone is some empty vessel steered by the marketing.

The question is...if you REALLY want to understand the motivations of vinyl enthusiasts, and the "vinyl comeback," you aren't going to do it by eschewing nuance. As in "It's All Marketing."

For instance, around here the Revel speaker brand is much lauded. If someone came on and said "I can explain why Revel is popular around here. It's all just marketing." Well, yeah, they market their speakers with reference to the research underpinning the designs. But does that mean "people here only buy them because of the marketing" or that "marketing CAUSES people here to BELIEVE the speakers sound good?"

Obviously that would be a facile, misleading take. The speakers actually do sound good - the fact they are marketing it doesn't mean that isn't a real reason people have for liking the speakers.

Similarly, IF you find some form of marketing for vinyl that takes off on the ideas of how satisfying it can be to interact physically with your music collection, that doesn't therefore mean that you explain everyone's satisfaction simply due to marketing. It may be the fact that, yes, many people really DO find this connection...and marketing is picking up on that. Not that people are simply manipulated and "that's that."

So there are ways of understanding the interplay of marketing (which, yes, certainly CAN aid in building certain impressions) that don't result in facile, misleading versions of "everyone is just being manipulated."

In my case, I had a turntable that I'd only occasionally set up for brief periods over the years to spin a few of my existing old records. I noticed on my own that I tended to get through entire albums when listening to a vinyl record vs when I was selecting from my digital music server.
When I bought some of my first newly released soundtracks on vinyl I found the whole experience very satisfying. Beautiful artwork, packaging, and pristine new vinyl sliding out from the sleeve made vinyl feel "new" again, rather than my crackly old records or those found in the local dusty old second hand record shop. I found myself very happy with the sound quality.. and all the reasons I gave for why I became more enthusiastic were honestly how I feel.

Now, I could think "Well, those are all valid reasons for me...but all those other people who've gotten in to vinyl...nah!...they have shallow, vanity-driven reasons allowing them to be just puppets of marketing."

But, frankly, I do not think I'm any "better" than them. If I have that kind of experience - why not believe the similar reports from others? I've interacted with so many vinyl enthusiasts, and watched/listened to so many talk of their new enthusiasm for vinyl, I find the themes that got me in to it repeated over and over in the accounts of others. When people give their reasons for spinning vinyl, I will take them at their word, rather than presume I'm the one who understands my reasons, but those others are lying, or preening, or duped, or self-deceived, or whatever.

Just as I will happily take the justifications any ASR member has given for why they happily choose digital music over vinyl. I will listen to you, rather than ascribe to you shallower motivations "You are just one of the ASR herd, that's all!"...or whatever. It's why I've always said to anyone here "I COMPLETELY understand why you wouldn't want to be in to vinyl, with all it's liabilities. Your choice to play only digital makes total sense given what digital offers and your tastes and goals." In fact, I have never proselytized FOR vinyl - that is suggest anyone else SHOULD get in to vinyl - but have only ever sought to explain and defend the reasons I and some others enjoy it, despite it's technical liabilities. This is because we get so many threads on the theme: "Why the heck are people still playing vinyl?"

But when it comes to vinyl, some people it seems can only ascribe disparaging, belittling "motivations" and even describe the reasons given as some sort of "ego-stroking." It's bizzarre, frankly.

 

[MattHooper]

Please don‘t put words in my mouth. I never said anyone is a sucker.

Sure, you just assert that people are simply manipulated by marketing to believe all those "magic things" about records.

I can assume now that deep down you feel like a sucker, and my post triggers an anger response .

That's troll territory.

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.

LOL. "I don't judge" (and then immediately implieds a disparaging judgement). Yes, your posts certainly come across as "objective."

 

[Leporello]

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.

Oh no, please stop.. .aargh, now you did it: I gotta get me some vinyls

 

[iv0]

many people really DO find this connection...and marketing is picking up on that

Actually, maybe marketing has caused the people to think that they by themselves discovered this lost connection and now crave it . But plz. lets stop now. I'll be happy to msg in private.

 

[Leporello]

Actually, maybe marketing has caused the people to think that they by themselves discovered this lost connection and now crave it .

Spot on.

 

[IPunchCholla]

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.

If it is a fact, you should be able to show data. In fact, until you do it is still just an opinion.

 

[BinkieHuckerback]

Has there been much marketing about vinyl?
Do the people who buy vinyl listen to it?

 

[MattHooper]

Actually, maybe marketing has caused the people to think that they by themselves discovered this lost connection and now crave it . But plz. lets stop now. I'll be happy to msg in private.

So now it's "maybe" marketing causing people to experience these things.

You seemed much more confident before ;-)

So...what's your evidence to show it's marketing causing these phenomena, rather than the phenomena having any validity in of themselves.

For instance, I noticed my tendency to get through an entire vinyl album vs less so from my digital collection, well before I was aware of "marketing" telling me what I should experience. How do you know I'm wrong, and that in fact it wouldn't occur "naturally" and that marketing did, or was required to, cause my experience?

Otherwise, as people have said, it's just your mere speculation, not some "objective facts" you are laying down on the crowd.

 

[Peterinvan]

Simple: sound quality.

Heresy, I realise, but I can only speak from my own experience which is this: after 20 years of pursuing the digital dream I decided to try some of my old records and was blown away by what I heard, compared to what I was used to for those past years: MUSIC. Toe tappingly, head bobbingly engaging MUSIC. And it was the same, again and again - each record I tried sounded way more enjoyable than the same digital album, particularly with an all analogue recording. Now I'm 95% vinyl and 5% digital in my active hi-fi listening.

Plus there is the pleasure of curating and caring for a collection, which you do not have with digital. It brings a connection to the music utterly missing from a digital collection and makes listening to music more of an event rather than just a background activity.

CURATING:
I enjoy curating my playlists on Tidal. No Snap-Crackle-Pop for me.
I note that vinyl records are not truly analogue from source to groove. Google...

What is the RIAA Curve?​

 

[MattHooper]

CURATING:
I enjoy curating my playlists on Tidal. No Snap-Crackle-Pop for me.

Makes total sense to me!

(And I see no need to belittle or ascribe external manipulation to your motivations. If you don't like vinyl noise and in fact enjoy curating
your music via playlists...totally reasonable!!! I have playlists I use to, and I'm grateful for them).

 

[Robin L]

I mentioned Philip K Dick and simulacra before. Blade Runner 2049 expanded the world of Blade Runner. Just as Blade Runner is not exactly "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" The new character of "Joi" in 2049 is manufactured as some sort of software phantasm designed to make the owner happy. While "K" is a skin job, and therefore somewhat real, sharing DNA with humans, Joi appears to be a software simulation of some sort. The punchline is that Joi is the most caring, compassionate character in the movie. But of course, that can't be real, Joi's just a real good interface after all.

People have a problem with the notion of "realness" with music when it's in the cloud. A record is tangible, you can see the grooves, if the volume is turned off and your ear is close to the stylus, you can hear the music from the spinning disc. As mentioned before, as they wear with repeated plays, there's more of a sense that LPs are alive, have a life cycle. There are other ways LP reproduction can also evoke more of a sense of "live" sound, I suspect due to resonant activity, but that's just my subjective impression. LP reproduction can also be spectacularly bad, suggesting the media can get onery. One is more likely to think they "Own" the music with LPs [they don't] because it is something one can hold in one's hand, it is tangible.

When more and more music, movies, books, things that were once physical, tangible, go to "the cloud", a sense of unreality kicks in. I can access almost anything without owning anything. And that's a weird cultural adjustment to make. Shelves of books 'n' records have been status symbols of sorts for as long as I can remember, but we are now in an age when visuals, sounds and texts mostly come via the internet. We are living in a world that was science fiction in the 1970s. Reality getting dicer is one of the science fiction scenarios of the 1970s, though that situation is maybe even more paranoid now than in the very paranoid 70's, what with deepfakes and disinformation campaigns. The new LPs are effectively replicants, encoded with the alien digital processes that a true analog fetishist would abhor, but no matter. What is so funny, much like Joi being a successful simulacrum of a soul, the most "heartless" and "soulless" media are the ones that most accurately reflect the intent of the musicians and producers. But it's the LP that casts off the impression of being "real", even though it but one of a number of different, less than entirely successful, simulacra.

 

[BinkieHuckerback]

I mentioned Philip K Dick and simulacra before. Blade Runner 2049 expanded the world of Blade Runner. Just as Blade Runner is not exactly "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" The new character of "Joi" in 2049 is manufactured as some sort of software phantasm designed to make the owner happy. While "K" is a skin job, and therefore somewhat real, sharing DNA with humans, Joi appears to be a software simulation of some sort. The punchline is that Joi is the most caring, compassionate character in the movie. But of course, that can't be real, Joi's just a real good interface after all.

People have a problem with the notion of "realness" with music when it's in the cloud. A record is tangible, you can see the grooves, if the volume is turned off and your ear is close to the stylus, you can hear the music from the spinning disc. As mentioned before, as they wear with repeated plays, there's more of a sense that LPs are alive, have a life cycle. There are other ways LP reproduction can also evoke more of a sense of "live" sound, I suspect due to resonant activity, but that's just my subjective impression. LP reproduction can also be spectacularly bad, suggesting the media can get onery. One is more likely to think they "Own" the music with LPs [they don't] because it is something one can hold in one's hand, it is tangible.

When more and more music, movies, books, things that were once physical, tangible, go to "the cloud", a sense of unreality kicks in. I can access almost anything without owning anything. And that's a weird cultural adjustment to make. Shelves of books 'n' records have been status symbols of sorts for as long as I can remember, but we are now in an age when visuals, sounds and texts mostly come via the internet. We are living in a world that was science fiction in the 1970s. Reality getting dicer is one of the science fiction scenarios of the 1970s, though that situation is maybe even more paranoid now than in the very paranoid 70's, what with deepfakes and disinformation campaigns. The new LPs are effectively replicants, encoded with the alien digital processes that a true analog fetishist would abhor, but no matter. What is so funny, much like Joi being a successful simulacrum of a soul, the most "heartless" and "soulless" media are the ones that most accurately reflect the intent of the musicians and producers. But it's the LP that casts off the impression of being "real", even though it but one of a number of different, less than entirely successful, simulacra.

Deepities

 

[levimax]

I note that vinyl records are not truly analogue from source to groove. Google...

What is the RIAA Curve?​

Not that "true analogue" matters but the RIAA Curve back and forth is traditionally an analogue process although it can be done digitally now.

 

[Robin L]

Not that "true analogue" matters but the RIAA Curve back and forth is traditionally an analogue process although it can be done digitally now.

But note that "bucket brigade" digital delay was used in record manufacture prior to digital recording. A lot of "analog" records from the "analog" era are digital anyway.

 

[MattHooper]

I mentioned Philip K Dick and simulacra before. Blade Runner 2049 expanded the world of Blade Runner. Just as Blade Runner is not exactly "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" The new character of "Joi" in 2049 is manufactured as some sort of software phantasm designed to make the owner happy. While "K" is a skin job, and therefore somewhat real, sharing DNA with humans, Joi appears to be a software simulation of some sort. The punchline is that Joi is the most caring, compassionate character in the movie. But of course, that can't be real, Joi's just a real good interface after all.

People have a problem with the notion of "realness" with music when it's in the cloud. A record is tangible, you can see the grooves, if the volume is turned off and your ear is close to the stylus, you can hear the music from the spinning disc. As mentioned before, as they wear with repeated plays, there's more of a sense that LPs are alive, have a life cycle. There are other ways LP reproduction can also evoke more of a sense of "live" sound, I suspect due to resonant activity, but that's just my subjective impression. LP reproduction can also be spectacularly bad, suggesting the media can get onery. One is more likely to think they "Own" the music with LPs [they don't] because it is something one can hold in one's hand, it is tangible.

When more and more music, movies, books, things that were once physical, tangible, go to "the cloud", a sense of unreality kicks in. I can access almost anything without owning anything. And that's a weird cultural adjustment to make. Shelves of books 'n' records have been status symbols of sorts for as long as I can remember, but we are now in an age when visuals, sounds and texts mostly come via the internet. We are living in a world that was science fiction in the 1970s. Reality getting dicer is one of the science fiction scenarios of the 1970s, though that situation is maybe even more paranoid now than in the very paranoid 70's, what with deepfakes and disinformation campaigns. The new LPs are effectively replicants, encoded with the alien digital processes that a true analog fetishist would abhor, but no matter. What is so funny, much like Joi being a successful simulacrum of a soul, the most "heartless" and "soulless" media are the ones that most accurately reflect the intent of the musicians and producers. But it's the LP that casts off the impression of being "real", even though it but one of a number of different, less than entirely successful, simulacra.

I agree with some of that.

On the other hand, I'd certainly reject a claim (if someone makes it) like: "You need vinyl to really connect to the music." That would be so obviously false, given how many people are connecting to music just fine via digital streaming or whatever. Or a slightly modified "Vinyl introduces a stronger connection and attentiveness to the music." That too, for me, is so generalized as to be misleading. For some people...yes. For plenty of other people, the physical aspects and sonic liabilities of vinyl are simply a distracting nuisance. It all depends on the individual.

I certainly don't need vinyl to connect emotionally to music. I stream music all the time. Last night I was driving through the city listening to one of my playlists (Gawd help me I've become an ABBA fan and have been digging in to their lesser known gems), and I was in to the music as much as I have been at any time. In fact listening in the car is maybe my favorite place to listen to music. (I think it's both because I can focus on the music while driving AND it's enriched by the scenery I'm driving through. I'm both doing something I like while able to concentrate deeply on what I love in the music).

I think trying to explain the phenemona of the vinyl revival, like anything else, is certainly a valid subject and there is nothing wrong with trying to discern some generalizations or commonalities or patterns in explaining it. So long as we don't become blind to the nature of those generalities. Once we over-simplify, our explanations can mislead.

 

[Robin L]

"You need vinyl to really connect to the music."

Nope, you need to play music with other people, take lessons, learn theory, etc., if you really want to connect with music. And it takes as little effort to ignore the sound of an LP playing as to fall asleep at the opera.

If you really, truly want to connect to the music, you compose it.

More random thoughts: smartphones became a thing when? I-Tunes when? Did the sales of LPs rise as streaming took over? I guess the Rubicon was crossed by Steve Jobs in 2007 with the introduction of the I-Phone. That's the year for the turnaround for sales of LPs.

As far as I'm concerned, the differences between LP sound and digital is that it's a lot easier to get really terrible sound with LPs. There are quite a few turntable companies currently devoted to the cause of terrible sound. But no matter, CDs sounded the same as streaming---why bother? The miniaturized cover art? Easily broken jewel cases? Liner notes too small to read? Stuff to fill up shelves? On the other hand, LPs sound different, to some that difference is better.

So there's enough difference in packaging and sound as to make it a choice based on factors that don't apply equally to all.

 

[BinkieHuckerback]

I love music and feel 'connected' to it all the time. I gave up vinyl as soon as I possibly could.

 

[Anthony101]

IMO high-resolution files usually are just more accurate and better sounding. For example, today, I listened to the album Pulse by Pink Floyd in Hi-Res using Amazon Music and my iFi Zen DAC. I didn't have to get up from the sofa clean the stylus or a record, and the quality was just mind-blowing, so much so that today I have ordered one of Amir's approved DAC and headphone amp for future enjoyment.

However, I listen to vinyl; I will not give any reasons why; this has already been explained in this thread by competent members of ASR. One might have to say that each format has its charms, and their overall differences in quality are often overwhelmed by the quality of the initial recording and playback setup.

If you don't like vinyl, you shouldn't tell every Tom Dick and Harry how superior your audio format is, belittling them or calling them suckers. That's generally childish and a dickish behavior!

 

[deweydm]

Not that "true analogue" matters but the RIAA Curve back and forth is traditionally an analogue process although it can be done digitally now.

Use a Parks Audio Puffin Phono DSP, so if vinyl relevance is dependent on keeping it analog, I’m definitely doing it wrong. But then even some older favorites from the eighties were recorded digitally, so yeah, good luck with that.

(But the LP was obviously mastered differently than the the CD, so there was still a reason that doesn’t seem a little silly to me to prefer the sound of the former to the latter. Only justification for my LPs I don’t find a bit embarrassing now is as a sometimes, probably temporarily necessary, refuge from poor mastering with currently available streaming or CD versions.)

 

[billyjoebob]

Exactly. It runs so deep in your subconscious, that you don‘t even notice it.

Uh boy!