Vinyl is now a preferred medium for music aficionados around the country. There is a hashtag on Twitter that reads #VinylRevival. There was an annual holiday declared in 2007 specifically to commemorate independently-owned record stores. To what do we attribute this recent trend, and why have we reclaimed this lost leisure?
Vinyl album sales have been outperforming digital record sales for eight straight, consecutive years. A film I saw at the Oxford Film Festival, “Cassette: A Documentary Mixtape,” features Black Flag musician and spoken word artist, Henry Rollins. Appearing in front of his archives of cassette tapes, he says to the camera, “Digital is almost disingenuous.”
Collector’s value of records has become no different than those with a knack for stamps or coins. I personally collect vinyl records as well as record players, including a Victrola 6-in-1 Nostalgic and an Audio-Technica LP-60 Stereo.
I’m a music fan at heart. Many would question that self-proclamation due to my obscure tastes. I listen to everything from the universally reviled, Nickelback to the rhyme-spitting master of controversy, Eminem to a band as inoffensive as Seinfield, the National. These are the three pillars of my musical fandom, and their discography accounts for much of my record library.
A primary reason for this swing in support is the sound. Vibrations and chills beam through your body like a ray of sunlight when I listen to vinyl. Musicology would call these feelings frissons. Hindus would say it's your kundalini.
Records are unprocessed, non-radio edited versions of music that an artist intends the listener to hear. There’s no bells or whistles. There's no audiological barrier between you and the sensation of a record. It’s just pure, unadulterated music sans the buffering of an earphone or speaker.
There is a sacred experience that lacks regulation and control. There’s a private, unrestrained sense of ownership. My grandmother told me an urban tale of her pastor going to his church members’ houses purging them of their secular, non-Christian vinyl records. The evangelical pastor felt convicted and decided to light a ceremonial fire and burn the devil music. This reinforced my obsession and made me a pack rat for vinyl.
There is a bohemian aspect to it that is contingent with contemporary sub-culture. I own old clocks, dusty banjos, and dog-eared, page-ripped calendars from the 90s. I’m a man of studied elegance as well as a stickler for artifacts of the previous era. Records are conversation starters, objects for showcase, and definitive markers for my hipster aesthetic.
