The (Slow Spinning) Return of the King

So, it was brought to my attention that I was a bit of a dork. I'm obsessed with music and music history in what some people (*coughkevincough*....excuse me, something in my throat) consider an "unhealthy obsession". Sure, do I love experiencing music for all its richness? Yeah. Do I enjoy many different genres and appreciate the ones I'm not as fond of? Absolutely. Do I think something is missing from music today, not in its performance, but in its presentation? Yeah, but I couldn't figure it out until recently.

Apparently, though, I'm not the only one like that. Something I never thought I'd say again in my lifetime, but I'm more than ecstatic to shout it from the rooftops: LP (or for the younger generation - oh...my...God, I sound old as fuck! - vinyl records) sales, both units and dollars, have increased more than 120% from 2007 to 2008. This in an industry that has seen a contraction of about 25% year-to-year on its overall physical media (CDs, cassettes, music videos). While those promising numbers are nowhere near the figures posted by the virtual world (1.11 billion digital units to a measly 2.9 million LPs), this does represent a subtle change in how people want to hear the music, not just listen to it.

Let's go back to the beginning for just a moment. Thomas Alva Edison invented a bagillion things; everything from today's X-ray machine you find at your doctor's office to the stock ticker is thanks to him (and contrary to popular opinion, he didn't create the light bulb; he perfected it and made it long lasting so it could be mass-produced for consumption), as well as the "kinetoscope" (the precursor to the movie theater), the carbon telephone transmitter (the part you spoke into on corded phones...do people still have those?), and the electric generation plant.

However, one of his greatest inventions came about accidentally. He was looking for a way to record telegraphs so they could be "read" automatically and transmitted by telephone to the recipient - that an ingenious idea in and of itself - when he found a way to record and play back sounds instead of dashes and dots. There were other contraptions before his, but none were practical. His "graphophone" was born, consisting of a grooved tin-foil cylinder and a stylus. This later evolved, by other forward-thinking people, into the "phonograph", and for much of the 20th Century, it was the only way - other than live - most people would get their auditory pleasure. Whether it be in the form first depicted by RCA with Nipper listening intently to his master's voice (real dog, BTW) or the turntables attached to amps and equalizers of the '60s, the record, for intents and purposes, was king.

We became a car-crazed culture in the '50s and '60s with the new-found fortunes we had gained at the end of World War II, the advent of the Interstate Highway System, and Jack Kerouac's beatnik manifesto On the Road. We wanted to experience the wind in our hair, the sights not attainable on the old rural roads, and the unbridled feeling of being free - all while listening to our music. Sure, we had radios in our cars, but there were plenty of parts in this vast nation that simply didn't have the population to merit such expenditures like a radio station for people who would most likely never pay for their programming. Also, people wanted to create their own soundtrack, not one given to them across the airwaves. So, we tried everything we could to attach our beloved record players into our newly-beloved cars. When they managed to succeed, they failed. The major flaw with records: they skip sections of music when the stylus, which is on the record by pure gravity, loses contact with the vinyl.

Thus begins the dethroning of King Vinyl. Sure, it was slow and, as is always the case in situations where something as iconic as an LP loses practicality, not without backlash. The first practical attempt to make music portable came on the scene in 1964 with the 8-track. This was a popular medium for about 10 years, when the compact cassette - even though first developed before the 8-track in 1963 - burst onto the scene and chipped away at even the venerable LP.


By the mid '80s, the new kid - and new king, having overtaken LPs as the preferred medium of music for the first time since the days of Edison - on the block was now in danger of itself being overthrown by the threat called the compact disc. The CD was the ultimate in portability: high-quality digital sound, thinner size, and - for the first time - one-button pushing to jump from one song to the next. No more pushing fast forward and hitting play to see where you are if you reallllllllly need to listen to that certain song. The CD easily became champ in the early '90s, and stayed that way until the music industry found a way to eliminate the physical medium altogether: the MP3.

As I type this post, I'm listening to my iTunes right now (Yesterday by The Beatles just came on, and London Bridge by Fergie was just on, and All Your Reasons by Matchbox Twenty before that, in case you were curious), so I'm just as guilty as the next guy of buying into the digital media hype. In fact, digital music sales surpassed physical media two years ago for the first time and it continues to explode. The reasons are justified: iPods and other players are cheaper and more prevalent than just 5 years ago, instant gratification of having "that song", and no longer are you chained to buy the whole album - or pay the insane price for CD singles - if you only like one song. However, with all digital media, something magical is lost.

That something is the sound quality and the fidelity. Where the MP3 - and even, to a lesser extent, the CD and cassette - lacks is a process to make the music readable called "compression". It's not an evil plot by the music industry to sabotage the consumer, but in order for you to hear it with any clarity, some of the fidelity is lost. Instruments and sounds are lost in the translation, and it can cause the song to not be heard as it was intended. It's the biggest limitation with the digital format, and the reason vinyl did not, as predicted, die.

This phenomenon proves that LPs are still a viable media. For their clarity and richness, LPs are here to stay, even as a niche. However, all three (excluding the nearly-departed cassette) mediums are, despite their outward appearance of competition, complimentary to each other as all of them serve a specific purpose. LPs are great for their sound and, nowadays, nostalgia and novelty, but unless you want to listen to an entire album start to finish or go to the turntable after every song and try to find the hard-to-see "gaps" signifying the end of one track and the beginning of another, they're not practical.

CDs are great for making up those short-comings, and they're both recordable and portable, too. As any college kid or teenager can attest, road trips are naturally more fun with a stack of CDs; plus, they sound the best in a car since most car audio systems are built today specifically to account for the acoustics needed for CDs. Their drawback is while portable, they're not meant for physical activities like running, hiking, or anything involving great human exertion, since the CD, like the LP, can skip if mishandled.

MP3, while having the worst sound of the three, is the most convenient. You can have seemingly endless playlists with any combination of music you would like and, with a music player, take it anywhere you go. No need to worry about jogging too hard and causing a skip, as it's all digital now. But, what is gained in utility is lost in playback (as discussed above).

I own about 140 CDs and over 1400 MP3s (about 500 or so are from said CDs), and plan on investing in a turntable soon. Do I own any records? No, but with all the garage sales lately with people trying to make ends meet, I can help my fellow neighbors by taking their (gently-used) vinyl off their hands. Also, stores like FYE and Best Buy are getting back in the LP game, with a surprising amount of new titles available on vinyl. (However, buy local and support your local record store; Google it if you don't know where they are. They have great deals, up-to-date selections, and are super-knowledgable on all genres.) Personally, I will only buy LPs I know I would listen to in entirety, but that doesn't mean you should take my advice on that. Hell, if I find Rhythm of Youth for $1 somewhere, I'd spend it just to see if my friends really do dance.