Hear that music??? That, my friend, is the sound of classic vinyl…
You know that round spinning thingy that plays music that your grandparents and/or parents used growing up? Well, good news – it’s not extinct! When it comes to enjoying music, one of the best ways that I have discovered is by using vinyl (aka: the record player).
Compressed MP3 files and digital streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, and YouTube have been the social norm for listening to music; however, vinyl sales have tremendously increased from under a million in 2007, to more than 8 million today in the U.S alone. According the British Phonographic Industry, vinyl sales hit a peak in the UK and the US in recent decades. Why? Because vinyl just is better!!
Let’s delve into the reasons why vinyl records are superior to digital MP3.
1) Simply put, vinyl sounds better than MP3:
Vinyl is the only playback format readily available to consumers that is fully analog and fully lossless. That means that with a quality record player, you get to enjoy a high-fidelity listening experience. High-fidelity equates to high-quality reproduction of sound, that has inaudible background noise and distortion – giving a sound extremely similar to the original. Who wouldn’t want to listen to music that sounds as authentic as the source intended it to be?
The quality is immaculate. The song you hear playing in this article is featured above. It is a vinyl by the Righteous Brothers, with a song clip entitled “The White Cliffs of Dover” (1965).
2) Listening to vinyl is a complete experience:
You know when you can feel the music when listening to your favorite songs? Well, with vinyl, you not only figuratively feel the music coursing through your mind and soul, but you can physically feel the music through the tangible form of the vinyl. There’s nothing like unraveling a vinyl wrapped in its cover. There’s nothing like being able to smell the music, just like the comforting smell of books in the library. With vinyl, you get to fully experience music with literally all of your senses.
3) Going to record stores is so fun!!
There’s nothing like the nostalgic and magical experience of entering a record store, whether it’s your first time, third time, or hundredth time! You can easily spend hours in the record store browsing, searching, and discovering music! You can mingle with other vintage audiophiles, and you can usually always get a special discount when buying vinyl in bulk! Furthermore, there is no monthly subscription to enjoy the music you want (Haha, take that Spotify and Apple Music)!
Vinyl is an unbeatable classic that has remained relatively unchanged for the past 40 years! Since it’s creation in 1948, numerous developments and refinements within the vinyl industry have been made to perfect its technical and practical excellence. As George Plasketes, a professor of media studies and popular culture in the School of Communication and Journalism at Auburn University in Alabama, put it:
“Vinyl is not simply a recording format, but the artefact of an age; it is an experience that embraces emotion, passion and romance”.
Keep calm and vinyl on!
Sources:
Oregonian/OregonLive, David Greenwald. “Does Vinyl Really Sound Better? An Engineer Explains.” Oregonlive, 19 Nov. 2014, www.oregonlive.com/music/2014/11/does_vinyl_really_sound_better.html.
Plasketes, George. “Romancing the Record: The Vinyl De‐Evolution and Subcultural Evolution.” Wiley Online Library, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 5 Mar. 2004, onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.0022-3840.1992.00109.x.
Sarpong, David, et al. “’Vinyl Never Say Die’: The Re-Incarnation, Adoption and Diffusion of Retro-Technologies.” Technological Forecasting and Social Change, North-Holland, 29 Nov. 2015, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162515003078#bb0310.
Zabowski, Jason. “4 Reasons Why Vinyl Is Better Than MP3.” VOX Player, 21 Nov. 2017, https://vox.rocks/blog/vinyl-is-better