I am, like a good little wannabe hipster, listening to a record right now. Not a "record" like the kids these days use it, but a literal 12" diameter circle of vinyl. Analog audio. I am fully aware of the irony involved with insisting on analog reproductions - it is safe to assume anything recorded today is done digitally. So I get that 96khz lossless something pressed to a vinyl disc and I play it... with a $70 turntable with a low-end needle, an included-with-the-price phono preamp, a 7.1 receiver, and decidedly tiny satellite speakers. I could probably improve the sound reproduction if I broke out my headphones, but even then they're only midrange 40mm drivers - not exactly capable of distinguishing between high-bitrate AAC and vinyl.
So why, despite my clear knowledge of the situation, did I pick up a turntable? Honestly, I don't know. Part of it is the novelty. How many people under 40 do you know who have a working (an important clarification) turntable? Exactly. It's a throwback to the "good old days" and adds a dash of class. The other part of it is nostalgia. I remember sitting and listening to records with my dad back when we had a great big silver Technics deck in the TV cabinet. As I got older, I would raid his collection from time to time and chill out on the family room floor with headphones on listening to Huey Lewis and the News. I bought a few albums a few years ago - a pair of Moody Blues records from a thrift store - but I couldn't tell you where they are now.
I have only one record - Punchline's Delightfully Pleased - because it seemed like an interesting thing. It is a rad record to be sure, but it makes me think I should start expanding my collection - and fast. It's hard to justify, though, because it means re-purchasing much of my music. Sure, I love Bright Eyes and Fun and The Format and Motion City Soundtrack, but do I really want to pay for all their albums a second time? It seems wasteful.
I've started buying a bulk of my music from Amazon's mp3 store. Actually, I could rephrase that: I've started buying a bulk of my music. It's something I always said I would do when I got out of college, lumped in with things like "exercise" and "learn a foreign language" except that I've actually followed through with it.
Hold up, side one is over. Time to flip.
It feels strange to pay for music, or at least it did for the first few months out of school. It was so much cheaper to hop on over to the seedy underbelly of the Internet and grab a torrent. Plus, I was able to rationalize the piracy and feel just fine with myself. Lately, though, I've found that it feels much better - and more importantly is far more convenient - to pay for it at Amazon. I've started impulse-buying the $3 and $5 albums on my phone because I can have them immediately. The Amazon mp3 store on Android is surprisingly enjoyable to use. Similarly on my desktop, the songs download quickly and are always tagged correctly with album art and everything. There aren't any quality or ripping issues; no static or skipping. No hunting down a good torrent and making sure there are seeds and waiting for it to finish. This legal music thing, it's going to catch on.
Anyhow, before I went on this tangent, I was thinking about paying for music twice. I don't like it. The solution, to me, is what I've already seen some bands do: include a coupon / code for a digital download of the album when you buy it on vinyl. It is trivial to rip a CD in this day and age, so if you're buying those I don't feel it is necessary, but ripping a record is considerably more difficult. I don't like that idea that I should buy the CD / download on the album's release date and then, months later, buy the vinyl copy because it is somehow special. I would be incredibly happy to pay $15-$20 on the release day for (a) an immediate digital download and (b) a physical copy on vinyl, shipped using the usual methods. It's a win-win situation, really. Of course, nobody in a position to fix things will agree with me. This is all leading to a copyright discussion that I don't really want to have right now.
I've seen a resurgence in vinyl lately - people seem to be more interested in buying records and bands seem to be more interested in selling them. I'm hoping that physical vinyl copies fit into the future of the music industry.
0 comments:
Post a Comment