Sunday, January 29, 2006

What's so good about vinyl?

Around 1989-90 albums started to be phased out and less and less recordings were coming out on vinyl. I remember getting a lot of new albums cheap at the time from record stores and other sources. And through the early to mid 90's, new recordings on album all but disappeared. Since say the late 90's albums have come back to some extent. There is a small section of them at the record store I go to, many fetch high prices on eBay and there a number of bands who release their new recordings on vinyl. So there is still some love out there for the vinyl, but it is all just old geezers like me who were raised on them? I would tend to think so, but I am not for sure on that. So what is the appeal of albums?
The big thing about CD's when they emerged in the mid-80's was the sound quality. Supporters of the CD said they had a clearer sound, no pops and hisses plus they didn't scratch as easily as the albums. That is true, but albums have bigger covers and they can have gatefolds, colored vinyl and picture discs. That's just the things that happen before you put it on the turntable. Now if you hate any extra noise or just like to skip and pick through songs then albums probably annoy you. If the music is good then that's going to come through so some pops and static shouldn't effect it as long as you are focused on what matters the most and that's the music. There's just something very magical to me about holding that album delicately and placing it on the turntable and waiting for the music. I love CD's too, but it's almost like we have gotten spoiled because the whole process has become so easy. Maybe that just makes me a dinosaur, but I do still like albums. Well, this is just the first topic of the week, but stay tuned because there is much more coming during vinyl week. I think my next topic will be ten hard rock/metal albums that are sort of rare that I own and why I like them.

2 Comments:

Blogger :P fuzzbox said...

I never really realized how much the world had changed until my daughter came home from kindergarten and told me that she was soo impressed with her teacher because she had really big black cd's.

5:56 AM  
Blogger UnHoly Diver said...

Simply put, vinyl gives you a more intimate feel of the artist and the music. There was almost nothing like buying that new LP, unwrapping it after you got home, carefully taking it out of the sleeve and delicately putting it on the turntable, easing the needle onto the record. That first little *hiss*, and you were ready to get wrapped up in your new record.

2:56 PM  

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