I think what you’re leaving out here, TrunkDr, is that the packaging can ALSO be a creative outlet. See charmtrap’s pic above as a great example.
Trunk, can we just chalk this up to a personal preference which you do not share?
CDs have creative packaging as well.
Of course it’s personal preference. I’m just saying vinyl is an irrational one with all other things being equal. As I said, I can understand wanting the physical media but CDs are objectively a better format. That’s not to say there aren’t exceptions that make a vinyl edition the better choice (better mastering, additional tracks, not available in other formats, etc.) but if none of those exceptions exist choosing vinyl isn’t an objective choice, it’s a stylistic one.
What do you mean by “outdated”? Lots of people (me included) think that vinyl sounds nicer. But vinyl is definitely more interesting to look at than a file on a computer screen. And for many people who are really interested in music, getting a new record and bringing it home and putting it on the turntable is part of how they consume music. It’s not, strictly speaking, rational. But it’s a more interactive mode of listening. When it’s a file I downloaded, music becomes very disposable.
It’s kind of hard to explain to people outside the tent, I guess. There’s an element of fetish there, sure. Bet hey, vinyl sales are way up, so, good news for the analogally-inclined.
Dude, come on. You can get way more creative with gatefolds and album covers and colored vinyl than you can with CDs. There’s no comparison.
There’s other components of music that got lost in the switch to CDs, too:
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Structure. The lost art of sequencing a record into sides. This one really bums me out the most, I think, because there’s a subtlety to album sequencing that is gone from a lot of today’s music. Take Husker Du’s seminal Zen Arcade record, which groups the songs together thematically, so that side 2 of the first record contains some of the most furious hardcore of the band’s career. That chunk doesn’t work quite as well as it does when you just listen to the whole record on mp3 or CD as it does as a discrete grouping on vinyl.*
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Length. You know how long the first Ramones record is? Barely half-an-hour. Circle Jerks? Like twenty minutes. CDs gave an impression to the consumer that every record should be 70 minutes long, essentially turning every record into a double-album. The idea that the double-album should be a grander canvas for a band to stake out a big artistic statement is totally gone these days. (Which dovetails into my theory that the 80s were the last era of great double-albums, but that’s another thread.)
- Granted, that can backfire. I had a ton of friends who never bothered listening to certain sides of Sandinista! by The Clash.
And people think insanely priced power cables or volume knobs make their music sound better too. Vinyl degrades every time you play it, hell even just over time. Maybe you like the scratches and warping and that’s fine, but it doesn’t sound objectively better.
But vinyl is definitely more interesting to look at than a file on a computer screen. And for many people who are really interested in music, getting a new record and bringing it home and putting it on the turntable is part of how they consume music. It’s not, strictly speaking, rational. But it’s a more interactive mode of listening. When it’s a file I downloaded, music becomes very disposable.
Again there are other forms of physical media, I don’t know how many times I need to say I’m not arguing physical media vs downloads.
It’s kind of hard to explain to people outside the tent, I guess. There’s an element of fetish there, sure.
If by tent you mean clinging to nostalgia then yes, I’m outside it. If you mean not familiar with vinyl, you’re wrong. I had several of my own records when I was younger. I felt no loss when switching to CDs.
Bet hey, vinyl sales are way up, so, good news for the analogally-inclined.
So is the popularity of creationism and Scientology.
What? you realize those plastic cases aren’t a requirement, I have several CDs that include gate folds and I’m not sure why the cover of record is somehow more unique that that of a CD, most of the time they’re the same. CDs can also have far more elaborate art work on the disc itself.
There’s other components of music that got lost in the switch to CDs, too:
- Structure. The lost art of sequencing a record into sides. This one really bums me out the most, I think, because there’s a subtlety to album sequencing that is gone from a lot of today’s music. Take Husker Du’s seminal Zen Arcade record, which groups the songs together thematically, so that side 2 of the first record contains some of the most furious hardcore of the band’s career. That chunk doesn’t work quite as well as it does when you just listen to the whole record on mp3 or CD as it does as a discrete grouping on vinyl.
And there’s plenty you can do when you can have the entire album play sequentially that you can’t do when you have to stop to turn it over. There are also other ways of distinguishing between sections of an album than a mandatory break.
- Length. You know how long the first Ramones record is? Barely half-an-hour. Circle Jerks? Like twenty minutes. CDs gave an impression to the consumer that every record should be 70 minutes long, essentially turning every record into a double-album. The idea that the double-album should be a grander canvas for a band to stake out a big artistic statement is totally gone these days. (Which dovetails into my theory that the 80s were the last era of great double-albums, but that’s another thread.)
This is ridiculous. There’s no time requirement to a CD anymore than there is to an LP. The average number of tracks on a CD is about 12 while LPs were about 10, This hardly makes every CD and double LP, besides how is giving more music an issue?
You’re really grasping at straws here.
How do you objectively rate how something sounds?
I’m waiting for 8-Track tapes to make a comeback. I have my bell bottoms and pet rock ready.
What? you realize those plastic cases aren’t a requirement, I have several CDs that include gate folds and I’m not sure why the cover of record is somehow more unique that that of a CD, most of the time they’re the same. CDs can also have far more elaborate art work on the disc itself.
Smaller than a record, though. Record sleeve art has gone downhill since the 70s and 80s.
And there’s plenty you can do when you can have the entire album play sequentially that you can’t do when you have to stop to turn it over. There are also other ways of distinguishing between sections of an album than a mandatory break.
That’s a fair point.
This is ridiculous. There’s no time requirement to a CD anymore than there is to an LP. The average number of tracks on a CD is about 12 while LPs were about 10, This hardly makes every CD and double LP, besides how is giving more music an issue?
Because more music, generally, means more filler. Would the first Ramones record be more awesome if it was twice as long? I would argue not. More music does not automatically equal better music.
Average number of tracks doesn’t means anything because a “track” can be any length. A two track album is not shorter if the tracks are 35 minutes long each. Your average LP was about twenty minutes per side, 40 minutes total. That kept records to a more manageable length for most bands to accomplish.
And like I said, it made the move to a double-album more of an artistic statement. When The Clash dropped London Calling on everybody’s heads, it was both to showcase their most fertile songwriting period and proclaim that punk rock was ready to move out of a straight-jacketed style to be more inclusive of all types of music. When the Husker’s laid down Zen Arcade, it was to expand the boundaries of what could be considered hardcore and bring previously ignored elements of rock (concept albums, pop melodies) into the American underground scene. Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation gave them the room to stretch out in a way that they couldn’t manage in a single record.
I’m not saying there’s only one way to listen to music. I’m saying that certain things were lost when people moved away from albums to CDs and then to digital. These are some of the more intangible reasons people might want to listen to records, rather than dismissing it as a “fashion statement”.
Generally yes, though I’ve had CDs with fold out art. Admittedly the folds suck though.
Because more music, generally, means more filler. Would the first Ramones record be more awesome if it was twice as long? I would argue not. More music does not automatically equal better music.
I don’t know about generally more filler but again there’s no requirement to the number of tracks or length of the album. There was no reason the Ramones couldn’t have put more music on their first album as the medium did permit it at the time, they choose not to, just as an artist today can choose to only put 20 minutes of music on their album. I have CDs that only have a handful of tracks with less than 30 minutes of music.
Average number of tracks doesn’t means anything because a “track” can be any length. A two track album is not shorter if the tracks are 35 minutes long each. Your average LP was about twenty minutes per side, 40 minutes total. That kept records to a more manageable length for most bands to accomplish.
While there’s definitely additional work required in a longer song, tack count far and away is a bigger factor in the amount of work required. It doesn’t, generally, take twice as long to produce a 6 minute song as it does a 3 minute song. Though producing two three minute songs will take significantly longer than one 6 minute song.
And like I said, it made the move to a double-album more of an artistic statement. When The Clash dropped London Calling on everybody’s heads, it was both to showcase their most fertile songwriting period and proclaim that punk rock was ready to move out of a straight-jacketed style to be more inclusive of all types of music. When the Husker’s laid down Zen Arcade, it was to expand the boundaries of what could be considered hardcore and bring previously ignored elements of rock (concept albums, pop melodies) into the American underground scene. Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation gave them the room to stretch out in a way that they couldn’t manage in a single record.
You’re making arguments about content and the effects that content had. This has little to do with the medium that content is delivered in. We’re debating the format of the music, not its content.
I’m not saying there’s only one way to listen to music. I’m saying that certain things were lost when people moved away from albums to CDs and then to digital. These are some of the more intangible reasons people might want to listen to records, rather than dismissing it as a “fashion statement”.
And I’m saying that’s mostly a matter of perception. Most of what was lost wasn’t a significant advantage or can be replicated in other ways. Not having to turn the disc over for the second half of the content is an advantage, a smaller form factor is an advantage, quality that doesn’t degrade is an advantage. About the only significant loss I can think of (that is difficult to replicate) is the size of cover art.
As madkevin has already observed, sometimes the CD version of an album is poorly mastered and sounds like shit. This was very often true in the early days of CDs, where the absence of clicks and pops sounded like a miracle and thus lowered the bar for the actual recording. In many cases, the bar stayed lowered. The Beatles catalogue was available on CD only on shitty 80s masterings until quite recently, unless you went to bootlegs.
I’m not talking about subtle/possibly fictional differences here. I’m talking about differences that any attentive person could hear on any system.
Sometimes the opposite is true: the vinyl pressing was poorly mastered, or even poorly pressed, and a CD corrects the bad job after many years. You know the Stones album Beggars Banquet? The LP was actually cut at the wrong speed. No version with the correct speed was available until Atco released the hybrid SACD circa 2000 or whenever that was.
Moreover, there are still many, many albums that have never been issued on CD. Even by the late 80s some indie labels were vinyl- and cassette-only, not from hipsterism but because it was cheaper for them.
AND there are many albums that have never been issued on vinyl.
Thus, what’s irrational would be to limit oneself to a single medium. This is probably true even if you like only a limited number of artists whose CDs are all readily available.
A final note: there must be places where vinyl is difficult to get, but I haven’t been to any. It was the dominant medium for decades; good used vinyl is all over the place. Cheap, too.
I’ve made allowances for all of these exceptions. Of course there are times when it might be better to get the LP or it’s the only format available. I’m not trying to debate absolutes here. However, in the general case, getting something now on vinyl over CD doesn’t make much sense if the content is the same.
I looked around and found a nice mid-range turntable and a $280 bookshelf stereo to pair for her for her office.
Then I remembered that she actually listens to music on her iPhone speaker sometimes when there’s a perfectly good music player that has the same tunes on it in the room. Though she’s a singer, she’s not an audiophile by any means.
So, I opted for a Jensen record player for her office. She’ll appreciate the all-in-one retro asthetic more than she would a better-sounding system with multiple components. If I’d kept my old Floyd, Zeppelin, and Beatles records, I’d have opted to get a better turntable too for our stereo.
Also, records are ridiculously expensive now that they’re a hipster-and-audiophile product. Got her a few albums by favorite artists and will hit the used record store for some fun filler.
When I played everything on vinyl (back in the day) I knew the names of all the songs because you had to choose a side to play to get what you wanted, you checked out the artwork etc. Now I just throw 6 cd’s into the cd player and listen to what comes up. I couldn’t tell you the song titles of 10% of what I listen to now.
But I would never go back to buying vinyl.
I did buy a new turntable 2-3 years ago though. Probably the $100 +/- Sony mentioned above. I was surprised how good the sound was on it than my old “nice” turntable that I had trashed.
What I’m saying here is that the medium DOES affect the content. That’s the crux of the vinyl argument. There are intangible things that go along with vinyl - from the way you listen to it, to the way artists thought about the concept of “albums”, to the physical act of flipping over a side - that are integral to the experience. Thinking of vinyl as merely a delivery mechanism for music is to miss the point of what I’m trying to say.
And I’m saying that’s mostly a matter of perception. Most of what was lost wasn’t a significant advantage or can be replicated in other ways. Not having to turn the disc over for the second half of the content is an advantage, a smaller form factor is an advantage, quality that doesn’t degrade is an advantage. About the only significant loss I can think of (that is difficult to replicate) is the size of cover art.
I think you’re conflating “convenience” with “advantage”. Is it more convenient to store 64GB worth of music in a player the size of a credit card? Obviously. But that does not translate directly into an “advantage” if you’re concerned with aspects of music besides portability.
That all ties back to what I was saying about a relationship with music. Flipping over a record is only a disadvantage if all you care about is an unbroken stream of music. To others, the break between sides can be used artistically. You ever hear Abbey Road? The end of the first side, when John Lennon’s crazy proto-stoner-metal epic “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” just stops, mid-song? Flipping over the record gave a natural, forced break to really soak in that jarring conclusion. On CD/mp3, it now just runs right up to “Here Comes The Sun” - not the same effect at all.
It does make sense, if you allow for the possibility that many records are objets d’art. Sure, I can buy a CD of Joy Division’s Still album in a jewel case for $12, but I’d rather have the wonderfully designed double album version even though it costs more. I can buy CDs of all the 4AD label releases, but the vinyl versions have beautifully rendered sleeves and covers and center stickers that just don’t translate to a CD booklet at all.
Vinyl looks better, it sounds better (to me…that’s a religious argument and not a very interesting one) and they’re simply artifacts in a way that CDs are not and never were. That may seem irrational to you, but people buy $80,000 automobiles which never made any sense to me either.
Ha, yeah, me too.
Yes there are ways to take advantage of any quirks a medium offers. Just as there are things that can be done with a constant stream of music that can’t be done when a break is required. I have several albums that literally do not stop until every song on it is done and each flows quite well into the next. You can’t do that with a record, you have to turn it over. I also have CDs that have extended breaks until the next track which you could interpret the same as the time it takes to turn a record over.
Are things different now, of course, that doesn’t mean there are more limited options to be creative with the medium though.
I think you’re conflating “convenience” with “advantage”. Is it more convenient to store 64GB worth of music in a player the size of a credit card? Obviously. But that does not translate directly into an “advantage” if you’re concerned with aspects of music besides portability.
Convenience is an advantage.
That all ties back to what I was saying about a relationship with music. Flipping over a record is only a disadvantage if all you care about is an unbroken stream of music.
Which wasn’t possible for an entire album on vinyl and now is on CD.
To others, the break between sides can be used artistically. You ever hear Abbey Road? The end of the first side, when John Lennon’s crazy proto-stoner-metal epic “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” just stops, mid-song? Flipping over the record gave a natural, forced break to really soak in that jarring conclusion. On CD/mp3, it now just runs right up to “Here Comes The Sun” - not the same effect at all.
Breaks can be put into the track and can be anywhere on the album, there is no longer a forced break while artistic ones can exist anywhere.
Yes people took the medium and did some interesting things around the limits of those mediums. This isn’t unusual, particularly in creative fields. People will find creative ways to incorporate limitations, they are however still limitations. Just because those limits are removed doesn’t mean the artistic merit of them is lessened nor does it mean those exact functions can’t still be employed.
Hell you can make a double sided CD that requires the listener to turn it over if you absolutely want that.
As a collectors’ items, sure go nuts. Again I’m not saying there aren’t reasons to buy vinyl, I’m saying in the general case, the decision to choose it over more modern options isn’t rational.
Vinyl looks better, it sounds better (to me…that’s a religious argument and not a very interesting one) and they’re simply artifacts in a way that CDs are not and never were. That may seem irrational to you, but people buy $80,000 automobiles which never made any sense to me either.
CDs haven’t had a chance. Just wait till the kids that came of age in 90s are older and CDs will have similar nostalgic value. It might be less intense or short lived as the medium wasn’t prevalent for nearly as long as vinyl. They’ll have fond memories of opening Radiohead’s OK Computer CD and playing it on their CD player such that 30 years later they’ll be tracking down a CD player so they can relive that experience and begrudge the formats of the day as being poorer in quality and sounding hollow and empty and that the experience just isn’t the same.
TheTrunkDr, why do you care how or what people enjoy in their music delivery method of choice? Some people just like the overall aesthetic of vinyl. So what does it matter to anyone else? You might as well head down to the yacht club and bitch about all these idiots and their overpriced, obsolete sail boats.
It’s not really about the music for me, it’s about stupid rationalizations that people make about anything. People ignoring facts is a pretty big pet peeve of mine. Creationism, Scientology, Anti-vaccine and other issues where people actively ignore facts I just can’t abide. I realize in most cases other people’s ideas don’t actually affect my life directly but the entire anti-intellectual movement irks me and it’s bad for society. I want people to generally be more rational about everything.
If people simply said they preferred vinyl because of nostalgia I’d leave it alone, that’s an understandable sentiment and they’re acknowledging it’s an emotional reason, not a rational one. But when people start trying to make counter factual arguments for something, that’s what gets my dander up.
As I said, with all other things being equal (I realize this isn’t always the case), there’s no rational reason one should choose vinyl over a CD or good quality virtual medium. Just as there’s no rational reason to believe vaccinations cause autism or that Creationism should be taught in Science classes.