The sale of vinyl records has exploded in the last few years, what is causing it?
Some high quality record players
In the past decade the sale of vinyl records has exploded and it seems that there is a growing interest in vinyl amongst Gen Z. Artists such as Taylor Swift have had many of their vinyl releases sell in the hundred thousands. However, while vinyl sales have improved, it seems as though record players have been largely ignored. According to an article by Billboard magazine only 50% of people who buy vinyl own a record player https://www.billboard.com/pro/vinyl-album-sales-rise-growth-slowing/. Now, why does this matter? Well it matters because if you buy vinyl records without having a record player to play them on then those vinyl records are as useless as a Funko Pop. I want to find out why vinyl records are popping off in popularity and why some people aren’t buying record players.
What Is A Record Player?
To put it simply, a record player is a machine that plays vinyl records by spinning it on a platter and dragging a needle that transmits the engraved grooves on the vinyl into the record player and then out into the device you’re using to listen (speakers, headphones, etc.) If you want to learn more about how vinyl records and how record players work here is a useful video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bw4YmbAKocM. It would also be good to learn the anatomy of a record player, so here is a diagram of your average turntable:
Diagram of the average turntable (more specifically a Audio Technica LP120X)
The most important parts that you need to care about is the stylus/needle (which you can replace with better models,) whether or not the turntable is direct drive (the table is spun by motors) or belt drive (spun by a belt,) and what speeds it can spin (33 ⅓RPM for full LP’s, 45RPM for singles, and 78rpm for shellac records)
A ‘45’ or a “singles” record A ‘LP’ or 12 inch record A ‘78’ or Shellac record
What is a vinyl record?
A vinyl record is a medium for analog music storage that uses engraved grooves on a disc made of polyvinyl chloride that are then spun and played with a needle to transmit the songs in the record. They were commonly used from the early 1920’s to the late 80’s. The first “record player” was known as a phonograph and the most famous early phonograph was Thomas Edison’s phonograph invented in 1877. Instead of spinning vinyl disks it instead spun wax cylinders that had sound engraved on them.
Later in the 1910’s Edison switched from using cylinders to using discs and instead of using wax for the discs he used Shellac which is a resin that is made by a type of bug known as the lac bug. Phonograph producers (Of which they were many) then used the shellac disc formula for many years. Due to resin not being that good of a material for engraving and the technology of music engraving being not so advanced, the records had to be spun at a whopping 78 rotations per minute to play the music.
This meant that most of the 78’s couldn’t have that many songs on that disc due to having to spend so much groove space on the records for one song. A 78 could only hold up to 5 minutes of music on each side!
In the later years advancements in record playing technology fixed those problems. In the 1940’s record companies switched from using shellac to using polyvinyl chloride which is a type of polymer.
An Edison phonograph that plays wax cylinders instead of vinyl discs.
Vinyl soon became the most popular material used for discs, and due to its physical properties vinyl records allowed far more grooves to be engraved on it and that meant more music!
Along with the switch to Vinyl a new form of record was created, the 45 or EP or Single record . It was called the 45 because it took 45 rotations per minute to play it. The 45 was also smaller than the shellac records, instead of being 12 inches in diameter it was only 7 inches in diameter. The 45 not only required an entirely new type of needle to play it, it also required an entirely new type of record player, and soon after they became prolific.
45’s could hold up to 15 minutes of songs on each side so they became popular for ‘singles’ or a collection of 2-4 songs released by the artist in the 45’s. 45’s became very popular amongst the youth at the time due to being inexpensive and not having that much music on it so teens could just listen to one or two songs they like without having to pay for a whole album. However in the 1950’s a new format of vinyl music listening came out, the 33 or the LP.
The LP, or the 33 due to needing to be spun at 33 ⅓ speed, was 12 inches in diameter and could hold up to 20+ minutes of music on each side. This led to it being used to release full length albums. Due to the increased length of the LP it became more popular with adults who wanted to hear long sessions of classical or jazz music instead of the youth who wanted short 3 or so minute long pop and rock and roll music.
In the following years the LP became the dominant form of vinyl listening (though 45’s were still popular for when an artist released a single or EP) and it is most likely what you imagine when you hear the word vinyl. For the second half of the 20th century vinyl was the most popular music listening method around the world. The need for vinyl records also meant that there was a need for record players, and soon many companies popped up to try to see who was the best turntable producer.
It wasn’t until cassette tapes and players became more commercially available that vinyl records began to see a slow decline in sales. Cassettes could hold far more music on each side (up to 40+ minutes of music each) and they were far more portable.
But it wasn’t until the release and the sudden popularity of CD’s in the 90’s and early 2000’s that the vinyl record became almost irrelevant. CD’s were not only portable like the cassettes, they could also hold almost 70+ minutes of music on them. Not only that, but CD’s and CD players were far cheaper to produce than the vinyl records which not only started to be produced less and less, their price also started to increase.
So from the early 90’s until very recently, vinyl record sales have been very low, only a small group of audiophiles continued to buy records from artists who went out their way to make them. It wasn’t until the early mid 2010’s that vinyl sales exploded and with the recent Taylor Swift Midnight’s vinyl record selling more than 200,000 records, one must wonder what is causing this record resurgence.
Curious to find the answer, I met with a fellow student, a vinyl record collector and asked them a few questions about the vinyl record resurgence.
Interview
Natalie Burke, 9th Grade
Hello, I am interviewing you today to talk about vinyl records. Now, what got you interested in collecting vinyl?
I had seen videos about it, and I thought that it was very interesting. For Christmas my grandma sent me one… the record player she sent me was broken, but that got me interested.
How many do you own? And which artists do you have?
Probably I would say upwards of 40, 50 at most, I have a lot of punk bands like Bikini Kill, Chuck Brown (who’s not punk) Minor Threat, and Fugazi.
Do you have any friends who collect vinyl?
No, not really. My sister also has a record player but I bought all the records she owns (All Taylor Swift albums)
Do you have a record player, if so which model?
I don’t know what model it is, but it is a discontinued model.
Why do you think vinyl is becoming so popular nowadays?
I think it is kinda similar to, y’know how people like the style and fashion of the 80’s.
So like Nostalgia?
Yeah like that.
Did you know that only 50% of people who buy vinyl have a record player, do think you know why?
I think a lot of people use them for D.I.Y projects, you know how they paint them and put them on walls.
Thanks for the interview Natalie, and for your cooperation.
So we have our answer, the main cause of the vinyl resurgence is a combination of nostalgia and people wanting to do D.I.Y stuff
Examples of Vinyl D.I.Y/Art projects
Vinyl records have been used by artists for a long time, whether heating them up to make bowls or painting on them like a canvas. Most of these people have no use for record players because they aren’t going to play their records. However the recent uptick in vinyl D.I.Y is probably because of the other reason why vinyl has suddenly surged in sales, which is because of nostalgia.
People are obsessed with the past– with going back and picking certain fashionable things and applying it to their life. Nostalgia based media such as Stranger Things has been very successful because of the constant references to past fads, toys, movies, games, and events that people who were alive back then might look back fondly and those who weren’t might think are cool. People want to reconnect with their past because they are disillusioned with the present, they want to return to a more familiar place when everything wasn’t so complicated for them. This in turn leads to people buying vinyl not because they care for the medium or the sound, but because they want to chase vapors of a past long behind them.