From the perspective of an independent musician, Vinyl makes sense. Streaming pays artists next to zero. You can't give away CD's, CD's are obsolete. Bandcamp is a good model, if you actually have fans / supporters, they will buy your music even if they can listen to it for free and you will get a good percentage of what they pay. Many of these supporters probably also want to buy vinyl if it's available. No one thinks Vinyl is sonically superior to digital, but that is not the point. It is a cool piece of art that you can own/collect that shows your support and it is fun to play records. A lot or new records are also multi-colored splatter vinyl etc. which is even costlier to produce and doesn't effect the sound but just adds to the uniqueness. It's the same as paying extra for a hardcover copy of your favorite book. No one is going to get rich by selling vinyl, but any other alternative is a just a joke.
I don't think it's a good thing buying a vinyl turntable nowadays. There is a current hype with vinyl, but I am not sure it will last. Many people say that vinyl has a superior sound, but this is mainly because a good turntable adds some bass to the sound (And sometimes treble), compensating the lack of bass of bad loudspeakers, but with real good loudspeakers, CD usually sounds better
Part of me is baffled by the (based-on-my-experience) tremendous overlap of people who purport to be environmental conscious yet also buy loads of vinyl. As noted by The Guardian digital media is not much better though.
I had a lot of album's in the 70's so I get the appeal - to have a 12 by 12" object to hold with artwork and liner notes to look at. It adds another dimension that digital audio lacks. You can't touch, feel and smell a web page that has the same material, nor see them all on the shelf to admire.
My question is, do people actually listen to the vinyl tracks or do they listen to the much higher quality digital file while holding the album?
That’s a really interesting question! Anecdata n=1, I buy vinyl and spin it! I do it a lot more with working from home. (I use an iPod classic otherwise.)
It didn’t even occur to me that people would buy vinyl and not actually use it until an artist I like finally restocked their discography on vinyl and fellow fans on reddit said they don’t (and won’t) own turntables but were excited to buy the records anyway. The records don’t offer anything over the CDs (same booklets, etc) except their physical size. Kinda frustrating having to compete for limited copies with people who don’t even own turntables. Wish they’d reprint, there’s clearly demand.
Lorde’s newest album is released on vinyl, but not CD (to reduce waste, I believe?) To cover off the ‘see them on the shelf’ aspect of CDs, they’ve made a ‘music box’ that’s printed with the album art and has all the stuff you’d get in the CD case except the CD and gives a download code instead. I thought that was an interesting way to sell something to fans in the age of streaming.
Anecdata aside, this is a really interesting question and I’d be really curious for some data. I’m curious for how well Lorde’s thing sells, too.
[+] [-] cryptResonator|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] boyadjian|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Fezzik|4 years ago|reply
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jan/28/vinyl-record-r...
[+] [-] crooked-v|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] okareaman|4 years ago|reply
My question is, do people actually listen to the vinyl tracks or do they listen to the much higher quality digital file while holding the album?
[+] [-] magnetowasright|4 years ago|reply
It didn’t even occur to me that people would buy vinyl and not actually use it until an artist I like finally restocked their discography on vinyl and fellow fans on reddit said they don’t (and won’t) own turntables but were excited to buy the records anyway. The records don’t offer anything over the CDs (same booklets, etc) except their physical size. Kinda frustrating having to compete for limited copies with people who don’t even own turntables. Wish they’d reprint, there’s clearly demand.
Lorde’s newest album is released on vinyl, but not CD (to reduce waste, I believe?) To cover off the ‘see them on the shelf’ aspect of CDs, they’ve made a ‘music box’ that’s printed with the album art and has all the stuff you’d get in the CD case except the CD and gives a download code instead. I thought that was an interesting way to sell something to fans in the age of streaming.
Anecdata aside, this is a really interesting question and I’d be really curious for some data. I’m curious for how well Lorde’s thing sells, too.
[+] [-] neetrain|4 years ago|reply