Vinyl Record Day

 

Although relatively little known, Vinyl Record Day is a non-profit organisation devoted to preserving the cultural significance of vinyl records and their artwork. Jolly good. Some time ago, I nailed my colours to the mast on this issue in a debate with our then Tech & Gadgets editor, Patrick. 

 

Today seems to be the ideal opportunity to give my defence of vinyl another airing.

 

You can also read his case for the prosecution, plus take a look at our rundown of the 60 best singles ever made.

 

 

While I admire Patrick's valiant attempt to consign vinyl to the dustbin of history, I think it's flawed in a number of places – and fatally in at least one. Cutting straight to the chase, his argument is dependent on the false notion that vinyl and digital can't happily coexist; that you have to choose between them.

 

With all the evangelical zeal you'd expect of a technology journalist, he's not content simply to prove that the old-fashioned long-player is the inferior format, he wants it removed from the face of the Earth.

 

To which I say, 'classic cars'.

 

This isn't a polite euphemism but, I think, a pretty good analogy.

No doubt Patrick can't get his head around why anyone would spend time and money collecting, restoring, and basking in the simple pleasure of owning a vehicle long rendered obsolete by technological evolution.

 

But it's perfectly obvious to me and, I suspect, to quite a lot of others.

 

Yes, modern cars come equipped with a million and one electronic gizmos controlled by a central computer more powerful than anything available to NASA when they put a man on the moon. Yes, they are faster, quieter, more efficient, and cleaner.

 

But, to deliberately misquote Samuel L. Jackson's character in Pulp Fiction, "A classic car's got personality. Personality goes a long way."

 

I think you can see where this is going. Clearly not all old technologies acquire 'personality' over time. Nobody in their right mind mourns the demise of the cassette tape any more than they do the Skoda Estelle. But the vinyl record, well, it's the E Type Jaguar of audio reproduction. It may not be perfect but it's a beautiful thing – and not just figuratively.

 

It is a genuinely beautiful, physical object.

This is important. For all the storage benefits of digital, people like owning actual (as opposed to virtual) stuff.

 

We are a species of collectors. James Bates, media director of Deloitte & Touche, acknowledged this in a recent statement about the future of the music business.

 

"The industry could evolve from offering digital downloads for transfer to a device, to selling pre-recorded MP3 players, containing a single album or even an artist's entire back catalogue. Having a single MP3 player dedicated to an album or an artist would enable collectors to engage a human trait – to both collect and display their purchases", reckons Bates.

 

I think he's half right. People like collecting things, yes, but they've got to be aesthetically pleasing. To revisit the automobile analogy one last time, the prospect of a shelf filled with cheap MP3 players is about as appealing as a garage full of old Skodas.

 

But I digress slightly.

Anyway, while we're on the subject of aesthetics, there is an integral part of the vinyl experience even the most diehard digital fan can't knock - the artwork of a traditional gatefold sleeve. The advent of the CD with its ugly, poky little case has seen a steady decline in the quality of album art.

 

If you think of the most iconic, innovative, and downright brilliant album covers of all time (Sgt. Pepper's, Sticky Fingers, The Velvet Underground and Nico to name but three), very few were released in the last 20 years. What has been a dying art runs the risk of extinction if downloading replaces physical sales entirely.

 

Believe it or not, this isn't even the most worrying threat posed by the digital revolution. Not only is the beauty of the physical object at risk, as people become used to picking and choosing the songs they want to download, so is the very format of the album itself.

 

This would be nothing short of tragic. It may on the face of it sound vaguely fascist to insist people buy an album in its entirety or not at all.

 

But, in the main, albums aren't simply a collection of tracks thrown together at random. They're designed to be listened to in full and in a particular order.

 

You may as well ditch the novel in favour of individually downloadable short stories while you're at it.

Vinyl aficionados don't just like the format, they positively love it. Technically speaking, a bit of hiss and crackle are imperfections.

 

But so is the squeak of a finger on a guitar string or an unintentional blast of feedback. When affection for something is strong enough, even its flaws become charming. Just ask my mum.

 

Actually, don't.

 

Patrick has referred to this affection as "sentimental", like it's a bad thing. Sentimentality is one of the things that make us human. It's one of the reasons we're able to appreciate music in the first place. Call me reactionary if you like but I can't be the only one who feels uneasy at the prospect of a digitally perfect world stripped of all quirks, imperfections, and charm.

In fact I know I'm not. As long ago as 1997, the ever prescient Radiohead released their most celebrated album, OK Computer; a 12-track meditation on exactly this (and one designed to be listened to in full and in order).

 

It might have taken them a decade but the Oxford refuseniks seem to have found a way to incorporate the best of the old and the new.

 

As you probably remember, their most recent album, In Rainbows, was first released over the internet on a 'pay what you like' basis and, later, in a variety of gorgeously packaged physical formats including, naturally, vinyl.

 

Despite being available to anyone who wanted it free of charge for months, the physical release still went to number one. The moral of the story is that there isn't just room for both vinyl and digital, there's a demand for it.

 

Now that's what I call real progress.