Vinyl started resurging kind of an association with everyone's fascination with the past.
I think vinyl is like the perfect vehicle for music lovers to still indulge in modern
music but to still have it have almost like a historic feel to it.
You know as most people know it was pretty much the only medium of buying music back
in the 60s and 70s.
I mean even before that but especially in the 60s and 70s and then it kind of died out
as cassettes and then CDs and MP3s came around but honestly it was right around the time
the iPod came out that other people started you know looking for other ways to buy music
and they started going back to vinyl so 2005 was really when you know up until 2005 vinyl
sales were dropping and then they started rising and that was two years after the iPod
came out.
Music was starting to become almost 100% digital when iTunes really became like the
norm like everybody was downloading on iTunes or pirating or listening on YouTube.
It's kind of that counterculture of they want to have the physical art in their hand of
really appreciating the album cover and everything like that and it kind of gives them more of
a realness to the music so it's kind of I guess you would call it like indie or hipster
sort of culture along with antique collection you know you could see a revisiting of a lot
of people starting to like older classic rock and stuff like that again.
The digital era had a lot to do with it and the fact that consumers couldn't hold anything
tangent anymore and CDs you know just kind of the market for CDs got more and more expensive
and the packaging was just not enough to meet the expenses so I think that everyone was
just wanted more for their costs and when you get a vinyl you get the record and now
you can actually get an mp3 download code almost with every single new vinyl that comes
out so I think that the record labels and the artists and everyone collectively did
a really good job at marketing.
If you're listening to music on vinyl it's a little bit of a different quality to sound
so with vinyl it's a little bit like a warmer tone to it it's like a more consistent cleaner
sound as opposed to digital everything sounds you know we wouldn't really catch it because
everything we listen to is digital but if you do go back and you listen to a bunch of
vinyl it's just a smoother sound so there is the aspect of higher quality sound in a
way because it doesn't everything doesn't sound so polished and sharp and clean like
it does digitally because vinyl it kind of gives more of a natural feel so they feel
like they're appreciating the art.
The warm clear crisp sound that you get out of vinyl is not like anything that you'll
get out of anything that's digital the music has just been tampered with less you know
so there's no compression there's no anything like that and I feel that it's kind of what's
very appealing about it is that now and within your generation it's a little bit more it's
more commercial.
You know for young people I think a lot of it is just you know the nostalgic and historic
aspect of it you know it's something that was popular and you know just like with you
know people who go and you know spend the money on film cameras or you know people who
collect vintage cars or something for that you know just to be brought back to a bygone
era you know they want to invest in something that's you know of the past and that was you
know so popular before them you know maybe from their parents generation.
The love of original music you know the guys that inspired the young people now the Jimi
Hendrix the Bob Molly the you know people are going back to the old original music you
know and doing a little research where it came from and tracks you know you hear background
tracks and a lot of the newest stuff and people are starting to trace it back to where it
came from from the roots.
Everyone having a fascination with history I think something different I think vinyl
brings a different element to consumption than do you know downloads or streaming services
and even CDs which was like you know the next big thing at a previous time.
The decline of compactness of actual CDs is 100% because you know well people are just
buying less music in general because you can find it on YouTube if you just want to listen
to it at one point or you can get Pandora you can get Spotify.
I definitely think that they stand on their own I think that it's not necessarily harmful
or I mean it could be harmful or it could be helpful depending on the level you know
of the bands or the artist's career I feel that you know if you're an upcoming artist
instead of being worried about what they're taking from you you know you should try to
get your stuff on there to kind of for exposure more so than anything but I feel that you
know it could be there's ways it could be helpful and ways it can be harmful.
There's a handful of record stores just locally that I go to Radioactive Records is one of
them in Fort Lauderdale top five in Lake Worth is another a lot of the records that I get
are from online as well your Amazons and so on and so forth.
Vinyl sales are obviously going to help record stores and but you know it's also going back
to these traditional forms of listening to music I think is overall just helping everyone
in the industry.
I wouldn't necessarily say that it would or wouldn't save music you know but I definitely
think that it's brought something new to the table for the younger generation and it's
also I think very pleasant for the older generation that have they used to collect vinyl you know
that saw all these mom and pop independent record stores go out of business now seeing
them come back I'm sure is an amazing experience in itself so I think that vinyl would save
you know the music industry per se I think it's done wonders for it and I think that
it's just going to we're just going to keep getting more and more creative.
Record Store Day is one day out of the year it's usually in April and record stores will
run promotional deals you know sales and events sometimes they'll get bands to play throughout
the day and you know a lot of bands will offer CDs you know they'll release the CDs on record
store days so they'll come out you know that day and then record stores will be able to
sell them you know to the general public.
It's been happening since 2007 and basically you know independent record it's to celebrate
independent record stores and their culture and what happens is you know you host your
own party and your own celebration with local talent or local artists or what not and along
with that comes the releases for record store days so artists exclusively press certain
records for that day so they're all limited edition and essentially the point is that
they're never repressed ever again but that ends up happening but they're usually always
very exclusive.
In recent times we've seen the vinyl resurgence we've seen even cassettes come back in some
ways and cassettes are in no way a threat to vinyl records I don't think and I can tell
you from my own personal experience having bought a handful of cassettes and ones that
I'm proud to have in my collection but I've never played them they're still in their shrink
wrap and they're probably never they'll probably never be touched and that's okay with me because
they're more of a collector's item but as far as physical mediums are concerned I think
vinyl records are here to stay.
I think it's just starting I mean I think it's gonna go a long way like I said it's
something to hold it's something to remember most of the young people that I see coming
in they're talking about music that I knew when I was a kid I'm shocked that they even
know some of the artists they probably heard their parents talk about it or they see it
on movies with the you know the new movies that are out like the James Brown movie that
they just was out and the Four Seasons I think that inspired a lot of people to come back
to some of the older sounds the older music and I have children coming in here 14-15 years
old looking for vinyl and what they asked for when they asked for like Led Zeppelin
or Jefferson Airplane or groups like that from the 50s 60s 70s it's kind of amazing
when you hear you know what they like.
People will always appreciate it just because it's like a sacred art form like an old sacred
art form how we collect you know we you know we have art museums and everything like that
I can see people's vinyl collections being regarded in the same kind of light almost
you know to to an extent on like on a social level because we just have such respect for
it but I don't think it's going to keep growing and growing until you know we go back to that's
the norm of how we consume music but I definitely think you know I definitely think people are
going to keep collecting them and people are going to keep wanting to find rare vinyls of
their favorite albums and you know signatures on the cover and everything like that collections
are going to keep growing you know people are just going to suddenly lose interest in
them because they do have a good you know they have that value to them.
So yeah to an extent it'll keep going I'd like to see how you know how big this whole
vinyl collecting thing gets but it's I think it's going to level off eventually I don't
know when that's a hard thing to predict but I think it'll keep going.
From first-hand experience that it's only gotten bigger and bigger and you know with
with artists like you mentioned like Chaldea Gambino and especially like Jack White being
creative you know like with that last you know release that Jack White did with the
hologram on the vinyl and it playing backwards you know I think it's important for labels
and artists to keep in mind that it's not just about releasing a product it's about putting
effort into it so if you put effort in whatever you put effort into it's going to it's going
to sustain its weight and it's going to keep going so it's not I tell that to local artists
too because I manage some local bands around here and I always tell them that it's not
about putting out a product it's not about I mean in the end yes it's about how many
sales you can get and of course you want to be able to sustain off of that but you give
it your all and make a really good final product and whatever it is it should have a lot of
weight behind it.
You could take a one word and describe vinyl and one word.
Man I think that's a good question man, one word, just one word, nostalgic, one word,
organic, traditional, I think it was the way I guess the traditional the way that it was
meant to be.
Vinyl, besides awesome, timeless, timeless, I feel that vinyl will always be timeless.
I would just say intimate I think that's like the best word to sort of describe the entire
process that you get when you indulge in a record that's pressed on vinyl, there's just
so many processes to it, the size of it I think, just getting to the actual vinyl, having
to take the string wrap off, you know, taking the sleeve out of the jacket, setting everything
aside because you have to be careful with it, treat it like a woman right and then setting
the record down delicately on to your slip mat, you know your record player and just
intimate man, it's just such an intimate thing, you know, so yeah I think that's just how
we do it, yeah, cool, what do you think about that?
