(Credit:
Steve Guttenberg)
I'm not sure why, but there's a never-ending stream of articles cheering on vinyl's comeback. I guess if it's a slow news day, editors can't resist plugging in yet another story about booming LP sales, and they always claim something along the lines of "Kids are digging the grooves, they've seen the light, and now crave analog sound!"
Puh-leeze!
Don't get me wrong; I wish it were true. Maybe in some alternative universe, vinyl is flying off the shelves, and kids are ditching their iPods and buying turntables.
Back here on the Earth we know and love, 2008 sales of LPs were up 89 percent, from 990,000 in '07 to 1.88 million in '08. That's hardly a boom, now that CD sales are in the hundreds of millions. The best-selling LP of 2008 was Radiohead's "In Rainbows," which sold a piddling 28,800 platters. Second-place honors went to another British band, The Beatles, which sold 16,500 "Abbey Road" LPs. If those numbers are accurate, and Radiohead's Thom Yorke and company were trying to live off LP sales, they'd have to get day jobs.
So sure, there's more and more new and reissue vinyl, and that's great, but only a teensy-weensy number of people buy new vinyl. Most of my vinyl-loving buddies regularly score free records on the street, or pay a buck or two for used vinyl to play on their megabucks high-end turntables. Again, no problem there, but it's not the same as a true vinyl resurgence. That's just media hype.
I love vinyl because it looks cool and sounds great. I own around 4,000 LPs. And I'm hoping that the vinyl revival keeps growing. But the market for physical media--CDs and LPs--has nowhere to go but down. More than anything else, people want cheap or free music, playable anywhere they want.
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I was never much of a fan of music videos or MTV. I couldn't understand why anyone would want to watch a band act out a silly story or lip-sync to a make-believe "performance." Why not just shoot the band playing for real in a studio?
The geniuses at IFC have done just that with Nigel Godrich's "From the Basement" series, which is now coming to DVD. There's an amazing roster of talent to see and hear.
High points include the White Stripes. Jack's wailing vocal acrobatics and scorching guitar riffs bouncing off Meg's pounding drums on "Blue Orchid" are a sight to see. When Meg's really into it she rears back and sticks out her tongue.
Jarvis Cocker is a wild man, he and his band seem to be channeling late '70s Elvis Costello and the Attractions. OK, maybe it's Cocker's thick glasses that threw me off, but the music really does have an early punk vibe to it. Too bad there's just one cut from Cocker.
Radiohead opens the DVD and Thom Yorke closes it. Me, I preferred Yorke solo, playing an upright piano. There's a palpable quality in the sound of the instrument, every creak of the wood and clatter of the keys add dimension to the music. I love the way Yorke modulates his voice against those amazing chord changes, it's a commanding performance.
The "From the Basement" Dolby Stereo, Dolby 5.1, and DTS 5.1 mixes are you-are-there intimate. There's no heavy production, editing, tweaking, or effects to muck things up. You hear the "room," the sound of the singers and band filling that space. "From the Basement" is one of the best-sounding music DVDs I've heard in a long while. It's set for release on March 3 with a retail price of $14.98.
(Credit:
Steve Guttenberg)
It was bound to happen. After years of decline and the steadily rising tide of iTunes, Napster, Rhapsody, et al--CD numbers are now in free fall--and the LP has finally regained its position as the world's most popular physical music format! Boosted by sales of Radiohead's "In Rainbows," and Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black," LP sales edged past the CD a few weeks ago. Elvis Costello's upcoming release, "Momofuku," will only be offered as a hi-fi LP or low-fi download. The CD is on its way out.
The Compact Disc was introduced in 1983, and three years later CD sales outstripped LPs, but since CDs sold for $15 to $17, twice the price of an LP at the time, a lot of buyers resisted the changeover from analog to digital. Some preferred the sound of vinyl over the cold, hard shriek of first generation digital, and early CD players were many times more expensive than a good turntable. Sony's first CD player, the CDP-101, sold for close to $1,000 in 1983, which would probably be over $2,000 in 2008 dollars. But the music retailers, seduced by the CD's greater profits cut space devoted to vinyl, accelerating the transition from analog to digital. If there was no vinyl to buy, you had to get the CD. We didn't have the internet back then, so free wasn't an option.
Today's vinyl surge is fueled by a greater awareness of sound quality by music fans and artists, who have grown tired of hearing the power of their music thwarted by low-bit digital. After all, the iTunes version isn't actually cheaper to buy than vinyl, and the fans are aware of the new reality: if it costs the same, why not buy the best sounding version? Some vinyl fans get the best of both formats and transfer the vinyl's music to digital for their iPods.
The six decade old LP format has finally regained its position as the music format of choice.
I wish.
Have a great April Fool's Day!
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