Going Back To Vinyl!!!

In this digital age it is quite refreshing to see that vinyl is making a comeback with shops like HMV ‘re-introducing’ a vinyl section back into their stores and independent record stores like Sound It Out (Stockton) and Earworm (York) getting more and more people through their doors. Last year over a million vinyl records were sold which in todays terms does not seem like that many…but since that amount has not been sold for nearly 20 years (1996 to be exact) it shows quite a resurgence in a digitally dominant time. The vinyl market will always remain a niche market though unfortunately with a certain company produced boy band hitting over one billion streams on Spotify last year (i don’t really want to name them on my blog…although I’m sure you can guess who they are)…sigh.

Another reason for the comeback has been the introduction of Record Store Day, launched in 2007 as an annual event to appreciate the independent record store. Before then, the story in the media was that record stores were dead. But Record Store Day showed that they weren’t, and it brought vinyl back.

Vinyl is a bit of a hipster thing…things that were cool decades ago, but fell out of fashion, are making a comeback!

There is something very special i find about the anticipation of removing a record from it’s sleeve, placing it onto my turntable and putting the needle in the groove. People can get carried away…and quite snobby…about the differing sound quality between digital and vinyl and how much it has cost to get that ‘perfect’ sound. Yes, vinyl clicks and pops when you play it, but for me that’s part of its character. It enriches the sound of a record and makes it feel more personal…more unique. Vinyl does sound better and there are many scientific reasons behind how and why it sounds better but at the end of the day most people who play vinyl at home have their setup just right for them…usually through a record player…then into an amplifier…then into speakers…so it’s going to sound better. My record player cost me £70 second hand with a built in amp and speakers and I love it…even though all the so-called experts say that they are rubbish and that they ruin your records..it’s not scratched or damaged any of my records since I got it 8 months ago. Vinyl is very much a sensory thing…it’s not just the feel of the record or the sound of the record it’s also the look of it.

Don’t get me wrong, i’m not anti-digital music at all..there is a time and a place for digital music…it’s just I feel that with digital you miss the majority of the story that the artist is trying to convey through their music. If you go online and press a button to buy an image of a song that is then thrown onto a device along with thousands of other songs to be played at a later date on random is not what the song was made for. The album cover is virtually lost to the digital owner…apart from maybe a 3cm by 3cm picture…on vinyl they are bigger…bolder…concept art…something to have and to cherish. It all just makes you a proud owner and in the process, you feel closer to the artist. It’s hard to sell a story with a digital download, but if it’s told on a 180gram vinyl, with poster and lyric sheet; you’ll find yourself sitting on the floor cross-legged listening to and staring at the vinyl and really getting down to the meaning of the song. My first memories of using vinyl came from being sat in my front room…as the only record player we had was in the front room…listening to Sgt. Peppers with my mum and dad and older brother. As I got older and Hi-Fi systems dropped in price I soon had my own record player and played all of my parents’ old vinyl. Bands like The Doors, Velvet Underground, The Small Faces and The Beatles kept me away from slipping down a slippery slope of Def Leppard and Bon Jovi…I thank my dad every day for that save!!!

The endless times stood in Alan Fearnley’s record shop…the man was a legend through my mid to late teens…god knows how much money i spent in there. So many albums bought from ‘High Fidelity’ moments in his shop…if you are not sure what i’m on about…In the film ‘High Fidelity’ by Stephen Frears the main character Rob Gordon (played by John Cusack) is a record store owner who uses in my mind one of the best songs ever to sell an album in his shop…that song was ‘Dry The Rain’ by The Beta Band…if you have never heard it…or them..then give them a listen.

Alan Fearnley used to do something very similar…way before this film was released…he used to see what type of music you were flicking through in the shop and put something on you might like…you would then start nodding your floppy-haired head or tapping your scuffed samba’s to the beat, ask what it was and end up buying it…miss the place…met some great people in that shop. That’s what music does…brings like-minded people together and keeps others at bay. People I used to meet over flicking through new and old vinyl in Fearnley’s would be at the same pubs I went into on a friday and saturday…that would also be in the same clubs I went to afterwards…some great times…and all because of a love of vinyl…if I was in the same position today as a teenager who can get hold of music by just pressing a button on their smartphones…I think i’d feel as if I was missing out on something.