Many years ago, sometime in the distant past known as the 1980s, I used to buy music in the format of vinyl records. At that time I owned a record player, as well as a radio player that also played cassette tapes. I also had a cassette player in my car (until my brother wrecked it), a battered white Renault 4 that struggled up the many hills and mountains in western Norway, but I think I owned less than five cassette tapes. Even then, I didn’t own a vast amount of records, as I was a teenager and had no means to earn money except when relatives gave me money as gifts. I don’t recall exactly how much they cost, but also my tastes back then (as now), were narrow, so it wasn’t a case of running out a buying tons of records. Of the few records I bought back then, I still have them all except for two. One disappeared somewhere, and I have no idea where. The other, warped and bent I sadly discarded. Still, back then records were the main staple for music fans, even though CDs were starting to emerge on the market. They were also reasonably priced. It was an nice experience to stand in front of a record bin and flip through the records, although 99 out of a 100 were ones I’d never consider buying.
Between 1988 and 2016 I don’t think I bought a single vinyl record. By then I’d moved to the US, switched to CDs as I didn’t own a record player; my first CD was U2’s Unforgettable Fire, a gift from my wife. Around 2000, with computers now the mainstay of my life, I started to amass a digital library of music. I thought, at the time, that this was the perfect format: portable, hard to lose or break, and tough to steal.
Vinyl, though, has a strange and enduring appeal.
I’ve bought a few albums in vinyl since 2016. Not that many, as I find it hard to justify some of the costs of records these days. If you buy them new (as long as they’re not imports), the price averages $25 or higher. Wait a few months or years, and the price increases by 50 to 100% or more (unless they are rare Record Store Day editions, bought by entrepreneurs and resold at three or four times the original value; I recently saw Longwave’s first album listed for $250, an insane price. Records have become as collectable as first edition books, despite their fragility.
Meanwhile, the loss of CD space in whatever remains of stores that sell physical copies of music has diminished to the point where buying a CD of the kind of music I like (at least where I live), is next to impossible. I remember the rows upon rows of CDs in the Borders bookstore in the Arboretum in Austin, TX, now long gone. I remember Tower Records on the drag in Austin, as well as a smaller record store along the drag by UT also long gone—vast CD collections, and few actual vinyl records. In San Antonio, there briefly was a small store that sold CDs, but it folded, and if you check out the big box stores you’d be hard pressed these days to find actual CDs in the quantity offered only a few years ago. I don’t know if digital music drove people away from CDs, or the closure of decent music stores drove people over to digital and away from physical CDs. Since most CDs in stores these days are ones I’d never buy as they’re not to my taste, if I want to buy any CDs now, I buy it online either direct from the record company, or from a major online retailer (you know the one).
However, in the 2020s, for some strange reason (nostalgia, eh?), vinyl records are back in a big way. Once in a while, to sustain this strange habit, I head over to a local record store in San Antonio—Hogwild Records—a store that somehow still survives in today’s market. There I sometimes find records I like, but I have to admit that it’s tough to buy records for $25 to $45 and not find a digital download as part of the bargain, given that I could pay $9.99 or $11.99 to download the music and have available on phone, iPod, car, and not need to worry about physical space.
Then again, I do like the physical aspects of things—books, CDs, records. I do listen to music on my computer while working or (yes, I still have one) iPod while flying, and via phone in my car when driving. Transferring music from vinyl to digital isn’t always the same (or as convenient) as using a one-time code to download the music. Having the record and playing it on a record player is fine (though sometime tedious and an exercise in caution to avoid scratches.
Having a digital copy as part of the deal was something I’d come to expect when buying vinyl a few years ago, and now it’s rare to see this option included with records. Recently I bought three records, and just one had the code. Another time I bought three records, and none had the code. Just today I bought two albums and only one had a code to download the music. It annoyed me greatly, I have to admit, and almost made me want to go back to spending $9.99 or $11.99 for the digital copy through such mega-companies as Apple and Amazon.
Records take up space. CDs take up some space, but less space compared to the massive squares of vinyl packages (given that these days many albums are thicker than in the past, having extra packaging and heavier material). A few days ago I repurposed a deep bookshelf to hold only records, and it made me realize—having seen pictures of other peoples’ collections—that while I own hundreds of CDs, I only own a handful of records. If I count them all it takes me less than one minute to count a total of 45 albums and one box set. That’s a humbling number. It almost makes me want to bo out and buy a ton more records…except, the price for modern records is such that buy four albums and you’re out over $100. Imagine the amount of money required to build a decent collection these days. Staggering.
