I Want You (She’s So Heavy): The weight of modern vinyl

Posted by Daniel Stout on Mon 20 Aug 2007 at 9:15 PM

If your musical tastes tend toward the alternative side of the spectrum, then you’re in luck for vinyl. A lot of the hip, young bands that skew towards the alt have a much higher propensity to releasing vinyl releases of their music. This also includes bands on indie labels. I’m sure the record labels make bands pay dearly for the privilege and trouble of releasing an album on vinyl, but for those of us who still regularly listen to vinyl it’s great to see that steady stream of new releases.

The late ‘80 were a turbulent time for vinyl. Beginning in 1985 (and ‘83 for classical), virtually all releases had a CD version. I don’t know the exact crossover point when CD sales eclipsed vinyl, but it was quick and violent. Once the economics dropped out of vinyl the labels stopped releasing it in droves. The ’90s were an increasingly bad time for vinyl. But at some point the downward trend stopped. And in recent years there has been a resurgent vinyl market. Vinyl now gets some of the respect it deserves for sound quality that people were quick to dismiss in the late ’80s. And now with modern CDs being mastered louder and with less dynamic range, the pleasure of listening to vinyl is even more apparent.

One distinct change for the better from the end of vinyl at the end of the ’80s to the resurgence of vinyl in the ’00s is that the vinyl printed today is much higher quality. This quality is readily apparent in the weight of modern discs. Releases etched on heavy 180g vinyl LPs are very common these days. 180 grams of vinyl in the ’80s was pretty much unheard of except for very limited edition audiophile releases, usually of classical recordings.

The record companies have pretty much decided that anyone who listens to vinyl (excluding DJ/techno fare) is an audiophile. If you’re stuck in the ’70s then you’ll have your scratchy old Boston records to listen to, but if you’re willing to listen to great current bands from Kaiser Chiefs to Goldfrapp to Arctic Monkeys, then you’ll be richly rewarded with a great listening experience. In the ’80s there were releases printed on such cheap, lightweight vinyl that you could bend the record from end to end. It’s a pleasure dome of good sounds. Even ordinary run-of-the-mill releases are printed these days on excruciatingly good vinyl. What production facilities still exist for the creation of LPs have made the economics viable for the highest quality vinyl ever.

The most important thing is to find a good source for new vinyl. Whether you buy online from MusicDirect.com or have a local shop that caters to your needs, it doesn’t matter unless supporting a local business is important to you. Don’t have a vinyl shop in your area? Start one! Like the Record Collector in Iowa City, newly on Linn Street, you can keep the new and used CDs in the front, and have a spacious area for vinyl in the back. Or like the Exclusive Co. in Appleton, you can have a wall of new releases on vinyl, just like record shops used to do.

Tags: audiophile · lp · records · turntables · vinyl

This weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Validation: XHTML 1.0 Strict • CSS 2.1 • Atom 1.0