Maybe you bought your first as a kid with your own money or got one when you moved into your own place, but there’s something deeply nostalgic about pulling a vinyl record out of its thin paper sleeve, placing it onto the player, setting the needle down, and letting the music spill out into the air. Nowadays, the world of instant, digital media has made these tangible, physical items essentially obsolete, or so you thought. A resurgence in vinyl manufacturing and purchases has commenced, and its major market isn’t who you’d expect.
If you hear of someone having a vinyl collection, you probably think of a specific, slightly older demographic or an eccentric self-defined unique group of hipsters, but in the current age, that’s not the case. Vinyl albums are being created by current artists and are purchased by those in their teens and early 20s.
So why has a relegated to the dustbin form of media been pulled from the cobwebs and being purchased? There isn’t one clear answer, but the major player in vinyl’s comeback is the interwoven relationship between media and marketing.
Shows, ads, and music videos look at what will pull on people’s heartstrings, and nostalgia is an easy way to do that. Eventually, what was old will become new (again and maybe again). It happens in fashion, and it definitely happens in music. Visual media of a mid-century room and hazy, vintage lighting recreates a memory of what was the past (or what we think of as the past). Current representations of the past create a world for our imaginations, and memories play out in a sort of fantastical daydream of sorts.
Artists and their promoters aren’t blind to this and play into –not only the feeling of the past — but also the status or identity created by having records. One of the biggest giants in the industry, Taylor Swift, was responsible for seven percent (or about 3 million of an annual overall 15 million) of sales of all vinyl LPs last year and was the top-selling artist in vinyl sales in the US.
It’s also speculated that in a modern hypersensitive aesthetic culture full of microtrends, many youths are using vinyl, and have a longer-lasting sense of identity which is easily changed with other forms of media like fashion, makeup, and design. The alone time culture that has increased (for better or worse) has seen a rise in teenagers and young adults doing deep listening of vinyls either alone or in groups as a way to ground, focus, relax, and connect.
But what many young purchasers of vinyl have reported is the love of the sound of vinyl. A clean press of an album can have a richer, warmer, and fuller sound than the downloaded files that are compressed digitally on a computer. Listeners say that the aura and feeling of the more open-sounding tone of a song, alongside the sensory touch of the encoded grooves and feel of sliding the record in and out of the sleeve give a sense of satisfaction. These audible and sensory qualities of vinyl haven’t gone unnoticed, and its revival should be a jumping point to connect people across generations.