Vinyl Record Sales Higher Than CD’s for the First Time Since 1986

[Slapdad]

1 hour ago, robe said:

My step son lives in my basement and orders a butt load of Kanye West shoes and vinyl records. He works part time as a life guard and votes Democrat. I’d kick his ass out but his mom is smoking hot.
 

She spends 4 hours at the gym everyday and gets pedicures and manicures each week and I spent a huge sum on fake big boobs. 

If you can touch them, they're real. 

[smltwnrckr]

1 hour ago, UNLV2001 said:

Yep - Think the vinyl comeback started with DJ's mixing on turntables - gave a 30 something many of my old 70's & 80's many of my old vinyl albums 

Basically a CD is just digital on a plastic disc & now with downloads we don't need the disc hold the digital anymore 

Sort of. The actual digital representation on the disc itself is higher fidelity than a compressed digital file. I can hear the difference often, especially with good equipment. 

That may have changed with better compression or something. 

[Slapdad]

1 hour ago, UNLV2001 said:

Yep - Think the vinyl comeback started with DJ's mixing on turntables - gave a 30 something many of my old 70's & 80's many of my old vinyl albums 

Basically a CD is just digital on a plastic disc & now with downloads we don't need the disc hold the digital anymore 

DJ's have been mixing on turntables since the 70's, so I'm not sure that's the reason for it as much as the hipsters figuring out how cool it is and the nostalgia of it for those who are older than hipsters. Even the dj's that use "vinyl" have a Mac with the songs saved digitally, then they assign it to one of the two time-coded vinyl records that they use so they can manipulate it manually. If you watch, most dj's will never switch records these days. 

I still have five direct drive turntables (2 technics and 2 Stanton) from when I dj'ed in college) and a vintage Marantz that I pair with a Vintage Marantz that has been in the family since it was new (70's I think), though it needs some work. The bummer is that I lost about a thousand+ vinyl records when Hurricane Harvey rolled through town, so I'm rebuilding my collection...with colored vinyl and limited pressings if I can find them. I still have a few thousand cd's that I'm whittling down to my favorite 500 that will fit nicely into a cool carrying case, also left over from my dj days. 

I use Spotify to stream quite often, but these days, not all artists release full albums and I like to put on a full album and listen front to back, but it's a great way to discover new stuff. 

[smltwnrckr]

11 minutes ago, Slapdad said:

DJ's have been mixing on turntables since the 70's, so I'm not sure that's the reason for it as much as the hipsters figuring out how cool it is and the nostalgia of it for those who are older than hipsters. Even the dj's that use "vinyl" have a Mac with the songs saved digitally, then they assign it to one of the two time-coded vinyl records that they use so they can manipulate it manually. If you watch, most dj's will never switch records these days. 

I still have five direct drive turntables (2 technics and 2 Stanton) from when I dj'ed in college) and a vintage Marantz that I pair with a Vintage Marantz that has been in the family since it was new (70's I think), though it needs some work. The bummer is that I lost about a thousand+ vinyl records when Hurricane Harvey rolled through town, so I'm rebuilding my collection...with colored vinyl and limited pressings if I can find them. I still have a few thousand cd's that I'm whittling down to my favorite 500 that will fit nicely into a cool carrying case, also left over from my dj days. 

I use Spotify to stream quite often, but these days, not all artists release full albums and I like to put on a full album and listen front to back, but it's a great way to discover new stuff. 

I think the reason for nostalgia may be changing to some extent as purely digitized music has not material trace, so the tactile experience of vinyl and tapes is such a different experience. 

Also, at least when cds were the big thing, there was still stuff out there kicking around on vinyl that was out of production and almost impossible to find on cd. I imagine this is still the case with streaming or even digital purchses.

[Slapdad]

10 minutes ago, smltwnrckr said:

I think the reason for nostalgia may be changing to some extent as purely digitized music has not material trace, so the tactile experience of vinyl and tapes is such a different experience. 

Also, at least when cds were the big thing, there was still stuff out there kicking around on vinyl that was out of production and almost impossible to find on cd. I imagine this is still the case with streaming or even digital purchses.

I agree...the tactile experience of playing music is the reason that I still play vinyl. I have a ton of 60's through say 1990, but finding stuff from the early 1990's through mid-2000's is tough. To get that stuff, I usually have to buy it from overseas and it isn't cheap. The other side of that is that some of the rare stuff that I had on cd doesn't show up on vinyl or on most streaming services, so that's where my cd collection comes in. I'm a modern day multi-media man! 

[UNLV2001]

18 minutes ago, smltwnrckr said:

I think the reason for nostalgia may be changing to some extent as purely digitized music has not material trace, so the tactile experience of vinyl and tapes is such a different experience. 

Also, at least when cds were the big thing, there was still stuff out there kicking around on vinyl that was out of production and almost impossible to find on cd. I imagine this is still the case with streaming or even digital purchses.

What was missing from digital & even CD's was the Album Covers 

[smltwnrckr]

Just now, Slapdad said:

I agree...the tactile experience of playing music is the reason that I still play vinyl. I have a ton of 60's through say 1990, but finding stuff from the early 1990's through mid-2000's is tough. To get that stuff, I usually have to buy it from overseas and it isn't cheap. The other side of that is that some of the rare stuff that I had on cd doesn't show up on vinyl or on most streaming services, so that's where my cd collection comes in. I'm a modern day multi-media man! 

That's interesting. I imagine there are all sorts of b sides and alt Versions out there that audiophiles are keeping alive.

I think this is especially true for stuff like classical music, choral music, old Boston pops type stuff, christmas music. There was a Ton of that kinda stuff released on the cheap on both vinyl and cd over the years, some of it quite good, that i bet is just not available on streaming services or iTunes or anything like that. 

[smltwnrckr]

2 minutes ago, UNLV2001 said:

What was missing from digital & even CD's was the Album Covers 

You can roll your joints on something else these days, though. 

[Slapdad]

Just now, UNLV2001 said:

What was missing from digital & even CD's was the Album Covers 

Tough to do a cover like the Stone's "Sticky Fingers" with an actual zipper on it with a cd....it was an art that faded with vinyl. 

[UNLV2001]

Just now, smltwnrckr said:

You can roll your joints on something else these days, though. 

But can you then contemplate a Led Zepplin album cover via CD or Digital ?!?!

[Slapdad]

Just now, UNLV2001 said:

But can you then contemplate a Led Zepplin album cover via CD or Digital ?!?!

The joints would have to be much smaller....even smaller than those rolled on 45's!

[smltwnrckr]

Just now, UNLV2001 said:

But can you then contemplate a Led Zepplin album cover via CD or Digital ?!?!

No you're right that album art wasnt nearly as good with CDs and now it's all but dead.

[UNLV2001]

Just now, smltwnrckr said:

No you're right that album art wasnt nearly as good with CDs and now it's all but dead.

Zeppelin managed to get the album cover & sleeve design rights, which was pretty amazing for a relatively new group in '68 - Page had some rep from his Yardbirds days , but the other 3 were mostly unknowns - Once they got going on LZ II the album covers had to be expensive to produce ......but I think they paid off in the end 

[robe]

1 hour ago, Slapdad said:

If you can touch them, they're real. 

It was one of my best investments. 

[Slapdad]

Just now, robe said:

It was one of my best investments. 

Agreed. I bought them for almost all of my wives! No visitation deals hammered out or anything though, but that's okay. 

[robe]

12 minutes ago, Slapdad said:

Agreed. I bought them for almost all of my wives! No visitation deals hammered out or anything though, but that's okay. 

My 1st wife was a healthy Wyoming gal who didn’t need any enhancements. My current wife was only a C cup.

[Slapdad]

4 minutes ago, robe said:

My 1st wife was a healthy Wyoming gal who didn’t need any enhancements. My current wife was only a C cup.

That's the natural progression. It's like wine....starting with white zinfandel then progressing to reds with more body, only in this case, you want less body upon which to build, thus creating a blend. 

[toonkee]

13 hours ago, gold-n-brown said:

Casey kasum (?) Ruined a bunch of my mixtapes.  Good thing back then though, they played the song you wanted to hear once every hour.

I remember bragging to my fellow sixth graders that I got "Goin' Back to Cali" fully taped with no talking over the saxophone intro and I would make them copies if they gave me a blank tape.

[toonkee]

11 hours ago, smltwnrckr said:

Cassette tapes were a big deal for the youngs a few years ago. 

I was at a house the other day and the guy who lives there bought and sold stuff on eBay for a living. 20% of his house was cassettes. We both agreed that cassettes are a terrible medium, sound bad, inconvenient, etc...but he says there's tons of people that want them, so dollar dollar bill y'all.

[smltwnrckr]

17 minutes ago, toonkee said:

I was at a house the other day and the guy who lives there bought and sold stuff on eBay for a living. 20% of his house was cassettes. We both agreed that cassettes are a terrible medium, sound bad, inconvenient, etc...but he says there's tons of people that want them, so dollar dollar bill y'all.

Honestly i think kids just like the way it looks when they play. Tapes are the worst for listening, though I will say that I do have nostalgia for proper mix tapes. Making them right, the time spent doing it, planning the song lineup split fits with as little tape to spare per side as possible. The order mattered more, because the listener couldn't just skip to the next song. You were curating a temporal experience where things like pace and intensity mattered and each track had a relationship to the one before and after it.

Kids these days, they have no heart!