Vinyl Records
Courtesy of Rich Fury/Getty Images for Coachella
As I write this journal, I have just flipped my ABBA vinyl record on its second side with Super Trooper making its entrance, echoing in my room. Till today, many audiophiles still regard vinyl records to be the best music medium for the audio quality and listening experience. While popular songs have commonly been regarded as transient, vinyl records have definitely held up and stood the test of time.
History of Vinyl Records
In 1857, Edouard-Leon Scott, a French inventor, invented the Phonautograph. It was a device that used a vibrating pen to graphically represent and characterize sounds on little paper discs. The device was designed with the intention to help people understand how sounds work. Twenty-one years later, Thomas Edison invented the Phonautograph, which enabled people to hear music. In order to capture and repeat sounds from the Phonautograph, a stylus was utilized to carve grooves into tinfoil. Emile Berliner, an inventor, later patented the phonograph, the first vinyl record player, in 1867. The device required manual operation and played seven-inch rubber discs (History of Vinyl, 2018).
Fast forward to 1948, the world saw an upgrade and was introduced to the first LP (Long Playing) Record which was created by Peter Carl Goldmark and his team at CBS Laboratories (Britannica, 2021). The vinyl record transformed the way people listened to music and soon became a regular in most homes. Holding approximately 20 minutes of music on each side of the disc, the 12-inch-wide record played at a rate of 22 1/3 revolutions per minute (Vinyl Records Changed Music Industry, n.d.).
Death and Rebirth of Vinyl Records
The slow death of Vinyl Records came shortly when the cassette tape was introduced in 1962. The steep decline continued with the birth of CDs in 1982 which immediately became the most convenient way of storing and playing music due to their ability to hold up to 80 minutes’ worth of music (History of CD, 2019). Vinyl records had slowly become a thing of the past by the early 2000s and were retained in people's collective consciousness and storage rooms, collecting dust.
However, in 2008, record retailers around the world began commemorating "Record Store Day”. Since the inception of “Record Store Day”, there has been a growing desire for vinyl albums over other media in the following years (Christopher, 2021). In 2020, profits from vinyl record sales increased by 30%, which many credited were purchases from fans who would instead have spent their money on concert tickets that were canceled due to the Covid- 19 Pandemic (Peirson-Hagger, 2021). Additionally, in 2022, vinyl record sales also shockingly surpassed CD sales for the first time since 1986 (Christopher, 2021). With the rise of technology and subscription-based streaming, we can now easily play any song or artist anytime, anywhere at our fingertips. Yet, ironically, many individuals, especially audiophiles, turn to vinyl records as one of their favorite ways to listen to music, swearing by its realistic sound, comparable to if you were being serenaded by your favorite artist in your bedroom.
Vinyl records have traditionally been linked with middle-aged people with a sentimental appreciation for LPs, but findings suggest that millennials and Gen Z consumers are the key driving factors behind the vinyl resurgence. Approximately half of the vinyl purchasers these days are under the age of 35, with the youths continuing their fight in bringing this traditional medium back into trend and the new age. Vinyl Records should have been extinct long ago, given the music industry's technical breakthroughs. Despite this, vinyl sales have increased significantly over the last 13 years. It is without a doubt that the vinyl renaissance is definitely tinged with hipster fascination (Vole, 2021). Perhaps, it is also due to its tangibility and whole package experience. From purchasing a vinyl to unwrapping it, carefully removing it from its packaging, and finally playing it, shapes the uniqueness of the journey of music which connects the listener and their artist, making vinyl records so popular amongst the millennials and Gen Zs. I am definitely a Gen Z that is sold by the whole experience! Just something about it that makes it feel so special!
PRINCE- Purple Rain Rare Motorbike Shape Vinyl. Courtesy of Fleetwoodmac.
Looking through my vinyl records, I found something that almost all of them have in common with each other. They are black. Vinyl records can be pressed in different colors of PVC, with red being the most popular and some special records even come in different shapes for rare editions – a vinyl collector’s dream. Colored vinyl records have been proven popular among collectors for a long time, costing a heftier price tag on the collector market as compared to the usual black disc vinyl (Colored Vinyl Records, n.d.). However, there is actually a reason why records are commonly pressed in black PVC instead. According to Furnace Record Pressing (n.d.), it is due to electrostatic. PVC, it turns out, is a natural insulator that accumulates a static charge as time goes by, which might attract dust. Due to the grooves on a vinyl record, dust can accumulate in it, which would eventually deteriorate the sharpness of the stylus on a record player, making it its biggest enemy. To significantly boost the conductivity of the material, Carbon black is added to the PVC blend. This results in less static and dust accumulation on the vinyl record over time. Personally, it is also easier for me to spot dust sitting on my vinyl records, which prompts me to clean my records before putting them on the record player.
Limited edition: Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. Courtesy of Warren Wesley Patterson.
Another interesting tidbit I discovered while researching is that the Wu-Tang Clan: Once Upon a Time in Shaolin record is the most expensive Vinyl Record ever sold in the world, costing a mind-boggling $2 million. This is a 2015 album, as well as the one and only original copy pressed into a record. The record also includes a contract that states that the owner may not sell or profit from the record for 100 years, but may release the album for free if they so desire. The owner of this record was revealed to be the controversial Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli. However, Shkreli ended up being arrested and later prosecuted for securities fraud and was sentenced to 20 years in jail by a federal judge. The LP was seized by the Feds and to this day, it seems like they still have the $2 Million Wu- Tang Clan Record sitting somewhere, probably tightly secured (Expensive Vinyl Records Sold, 2019).
By now, I've already risen up from my seat four times to replace and switch the remaining discs of my ABBA vinyl records while typing this. However, the record's richness and clarity have surely made the entire writing experience more stimulating and exciting through the various beats and tempos coming out of my record player. In time to come, I hope to see more individuals appreciating and loving the music experience and journey vinyl records can bring.
Written as a Music Journal at the University at Buffalo, 2022.
