Greetings, peasants! What, still listening to MP3s? That’s adorable.
Look, as someone who knows more about music than you, I think it’s my
duty to tell you there’s a better way. It’s called vinyl.
No, no. Vinyl didn’t die when Janis Joplin did. It’s still very much alive, and is vastly more preferable to listening to music in a digital format. Come, climb on my fixie. We’ll take a trip to the record store, and I’ll tell you the four reasons why you should ditch digital for 12″ vinyl records.
No, no. Vinyl didn’t die when Janis Joplin did. It’s still very much alive, and is vastly more preferable to listening to music in a digital format. Come, climb on my fixie. We’ll take a trip to the record store, and I’ll tell you the four reasons why you should ditch digital for 12″ vinyl records.
1. Your Taste in Music Will Improve
Let’s play a game. Go to your local record store — every good town should have one — and try to find Justin Bieber’s Believe, which sold almost 1,500,000 copies in 2012. Nothing?
Okay, try again. See if you can find anything by Nickelback. Nada?
Okay, now see if you can find anything by The Pixies. What, an entire
shelf’s worth? Why do you think that might be?
Simple economics, my friend. People who listen to
vinyl tend to be quite discerning with what they listen to. They don’t
listen to airy, saccharine, Top 40 guff with synthesized instruments.
They listen to bands that have artistic integrity, and actually write
their own songs and play their own instruments. They listen to great
songwriting, and have an ear for production. As a result, bands that meet those criteria are the ones you’ll find in your record shop.
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When you listen to vinyl exclusively, you unconsciously make the
decision to never, ever have to be confronted with Justin Bieber and
Miley Cyrus. And that’s lovely.
2. Record Buying Is an Experience
In a tucked-away corner of my hometown is a small, independent record store called Probe Records.
This has been a Liverpool institution for the longest time. Generations
of Scousers have grown up visiting this place, and spending hours upon
hours wandering through their expansive collection. Myself included.
There’s something wonderful about buying records. It’s the type of
experience that is sadly lost on the iTunes and Spotify generation.
It’s the type of experience where you show up and spend hours upon
hours aimlessly looking for music. You take gambles, and you drop money
on albums not knowing whether they’ll be good or not. You speak to
people, and get to know their recommendations and opinions, and
ultimately make friends.
It’s a vastly more social experience than any app or online marketplace could ever be.
Note to self: Build social music buying app; make millions.
3. Vinyl Sounds Better
Sorry, folks. This one isn’t up for debate. Vinyl sounds better than
MP3s ever could. I’m not just talking about that warm, mahogany-rich
sound that vinyl is famous for, but in general. It’s just better.
Most of the music you listen to is stored and
broadcast in a lossy format, where details are lost and quality is
reduced. This is because audio is compressed in order to make it small enough to shove on a phone, or to broadcast over the airwaves.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re listening to a streaming service like Spotify (but not Tidal, which streams in lossless), or an MP3, or even to the radio. You’re still not getting the full picture of that track.
Vinyl is what’s called a lossless format. Nothing has been lost when
pressing a record. It sounds as good as the producer or band intended.
There’s another, much more important, reason why vinyl is better than anything else.
Vinyl, for the most part, escaped the ‘loudness
war’. You see, with the rise and rise of digital music (CDs included),
it has became possible to artificially engineer a track louder than it naturally should be. The problem here is that it has a massively detrimental result on audio quality.
Indeed, it causes songs to sound distorted and become unpleasant to
listen to, and strips them of their depth and texture. Because vinyl is
an analog format, it’s doesn’t really suffer from the same problems.
Don’t believe me? Check out this comparison between the CD version of
the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Hump de Bump, and the vinyl version.
4. Vinyl Can Make You Money
When you buy an MP3 on iTunes, there is no way you can turn that
purchase into an investment that makes you money at a later date. That’s
because you don’t own that particular MP3. You merely license it.
But, vinyl? That’s an entirely different beast altogether.
There’s an entire industry of people purchasing, collecting, and
reselling vinyl, because overwhelmingly it keeps its purchase value, or
even appreciates in value.
When you collect vinyl, you’re not just buying music. You’re making
an investment you can sell on a rainy day, or even pass down to your
children.
Face It, Vinyl Is Not Going Away
Vinyl is an old technology, and one that has remained relatively
unchanged in the past decade. But that’s because it’s as close as we’ll
get to a perfect device for listening to music. It is, to be as
straightforward as possible, simply as good as it gets.
Do you agree? Disagree? Do you think I’m a pretentious hipster douchebag? Either way, drop me a comment below and we’ll chat.
Image Credit: Probe Records (Radarsmum67)
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