Vinyl: The Reports of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

Vinyl was never really dead, neither in the hearts of music lovers nor commercially. It may have been in critical condition and near comatose commercially for a few years, as new music was rarely pressed into vinyl; but vinyl was never truly dead.

There is a difference between the "vinyl revival" and it's commercial resurgence. Revival is defined as an instance of something becoming popular, active, or important again. Vinyl remained popular, active and important the for a large portion of the U.S. And more importantly, vinyl remained available in the marketplace the whole time between 1973 and 2017 via small, locally owned record stores.

While the RIAA tracks new record sales, what had never been tracked by the RIAA is the sale of used vinyl, or vinyl checkouts at local libraries, or sales at flea markets, swap meets, garage sales... which remained relatively strong throughout the "dead" period. Funnier still, new vinyl sales never went away entirely. Vinyl still had a pulse, but was being declared dead. What we would call that in the real world (the world outside the music industry)?

Malpractice.

Some may call it marketing, but I would definitely call it malpractice.

New Vinyl Sales as Reported by Nielsen.

Look at the chart on the left. Sometime between 1990 and 1993 vinyl as a music delivery format was officially declared dead in the media via an RIAA release. But the fact remains, new vinyl sales continued, and even saw growth above 1.5 million units between 1993 and 2003. That is not dead, but rather a sign that new vinyl sales were holding strong and continued to hold strong even as a second generation digital format, MP3, was taking hold.

If you look closely at the dip in vinyl sales between 2001 and 2007 (the height of digital sales), and compare it with CD sales during the same period; the sales for new vinyl sales are nearly flat, at around one million units while CD sales dropped from nearly four million units to one million units in the same period. MP3 didn't do a lot to hurt vinyl, but it wrecked havoc to the CD industry.

Last year marked the 33 1/3 anniversary of my local record store. Vinyl was a source of income that helped keep this shop open, especially as other retailers jumped the vinyl ship. Yes, CD sales were tops between 1988 and 2005, but vinyl, mostly used, and a relatively small amount of new vinyl was still being carried and sold.

While sales thinned out, even for CDs, during the dark years following the iPod release, my local record store is still in business and thriving today partially because of fact that they stuck it out.

While big stores like Camelot (now f.y.e.), Sam Goody (Bankruptcy 2006, now f.y.e.) and even the mega-store Tower Records (liquidated in 2006) all folded under or were bought out by Trans World Entertainment and  this was reported collapse brought on by the digital revolution.Now at f.y.e you find that less a quarter of the store is music or music related, while the rest of the store is dedicated to toys, clothes and knickknacks.

Even the big box and department stores, like Walmart, Costco, Kroger/Fred Meyer have dismal selections on music and a majority of it is CDs.

But the independently owned  record stores, they adapted as the "trend" shifted. They remained true to music, stores like Ranch Records, didn't abandon vinyl because they were told to. They didn't cave to the pressures of the times, although nobody would have blamed them if they did. It wasn't always easy, just ask one of the owners of your local record shop. During the dark days of digital, it was pretty dark, but they worked through the struggles and as a result deserve our utmost love and admiration for these are the people helped keep vinyl in it's rightful place. It is these people, the independent owners of local music stores that refused to allow vinyl to die in the market place.

2016 brought about a change. I am not here to argue whether vinyl is superior to digital, or vice versa, but I am here to point at a fact and to ask a question. Fact: For the first time, 2016 saw new vinyl out sell digital downloads. Question: If digital was truly a superior format like so many claim, would simple nostalgia or hipster-hype for vinyl allowed an inferior format to outsell a superior format in it's prime?

The music industry, through technology, tried it's damnedest to eradicate vinyl from the face of the earth, but the technology was never a match for the multi-layered experience vinyl brought to the music listening experience. The artwork, the liner notes, the feel of holding an album, opening a gate fold, the smell of new and old vinyl; the overall ritual of the vinyl experience is something that technology failed to replicate with its push button access to millions of songs.

We are creatures of multiple sensory capabilities. We experience the world with our eyes, our nose, our mouth, our skin and our ears and our brains. The more of these capabilities we use during an experience the more we "experience" it. The digital experience is one that we experience with only our ears.

Vinyl on the other hand is something we experience with most of our sensory capabilities; we smell the album and cover; we see the artwork and grooves in the record; we read the liner notes; we feel the album as a tangible object; we hear the music we think about the experience. We experience a vinyl album in a way that digital cannot deliver. We live the ritual that is vinyl.

Sure technology brought us real portability and ease of access across platforms, but at it's best, technology brought us a cold and callous listening experience that forced music into the background of lives; played while we were busy with other things. Digital was no different than radio, something we listed to while we were busy driving.

In the end, technology couldn't match the truly human experience of music, the ritual that vinyl brings to the listening experience.

Now, with all that said, there is definitely a resurgence in interest for vinyl. This resurgence has been arguably attributed to the hipsters' "Everything Old Is Cool Again" movement. And in reality, the hipsters can't even be given that much credit. Most hipsters likely got their love of vinyl from their parents and grandparents or friends who got their love it from their parents and grandparents; those parents and grandparents who held on to their own collections long enough for their kids/grand-kids to discover vinyl through their collections and fall in love with them.

But, this resurgence is nothing more than a commercial resurgence, meaning the industries involved feel that they can make money off of it so they declare it a resurgence. The commercial resurgence isn't a bad thing. It provides an opportunity for us to experience new music on vinyl that might not have been available in that format before. Lady Gaga, Jason Isabel, Amy Winehouse... all artists who launched their careers when vinyl was reportedly "dead" all have music available on vinyl and it is because of this resurgence.

Not everyone who pursues vinyl today is a hipster; hell, at nearly 50 years old, I am way to old to be considered a hipster. I don't drink iced tea from mason jars. I still find it funny that BCGs are a fad (big, black framed eyeglasses known as Birth Control Glasses, BCG, because you weren't going to be laid wearing a pair of them back in my day). I especially don't think a sushi-burrito should be a thing. Hell... I'm still suspect of Fish Tacos. Vinyl isn't a hipster thing. Vinyl isn't an old fart's thing. Vinyl isn't collector's thing. Vinyl is all these things, plus a whole lot more.

Vinyl lives on today because the love of the medium remains intact. Vinyl lives on because vinyl is a complete music experience. Vinyl is felt, it is smelled, it is held, it is heard. Vinyl is experienced. Vinyl delivers a unique listening experience that can't the replicated by an LCD screen and headphones; it the exposure to all your senses that makes the music experience special. And this experience has been passed down from one generation to another because, really, what's not to love about the vinyl experience? A few pops and clicks... oh no. 

  

For so many of us, this is not a revival of a format or the resurrection of a musical savior; this is just business as usual. And for those of us who know this about vinyl, vinyl will always be a part of our own personal listening ritual.