Loud Love Blog: In defense of vinyl
by Drew Wilson on Jun 12th, 2011
Disclaimer: I had this post pretty much finished, and then was hit with the news of the sudden WRVU sale. Not gonna lie, it hit real hard. I started writing up a fast reaction to that, and then decided it would be best to wait a short period to cool off, assess where we stand, and think it through before putting something down in writing. Our own Dave Sharp wrote a real nice rapid reaction you should read as well (*linked here) We will get you an insider’s view of how the sale went down though, and rest assured, we are not happy about it, and especially unhappy about all the shady maneuvering and unnecessary nature of it all. But for now, here is your regularly scheduled Loud Love feature, and a point we’ve been looking to make for a while, so let’s do it, and not let the tragic WRVU news overshadow everything.Drew Wilson, the man behind the curtain of WRVU’S “Loud Love” Show, is a punk rock connoisseur from New York City and one of the last of a generation who can say they grew up going to CBGB's. He moved to Nashville to get into radio and found a spot at the Vanderbilt station in 2008, where he put his training to use and took over the waves of Music City with the only punk rock show on the radio at the time. Now, in 2011, he's still playing the best of new and old punk, hardcore, and garage rock, and he's a fixture at the local shows as well as booking and promoting local bands, and keeping the volume turned to loud.
If you took anything away from our first two writings here at Sinizine.net, or if you’re a long time listener/reader of Loud Love, you would know that we strongly believe in live music. We are lucky enough to live in a time and place where seeing bands play live has never been more accessible — from the standpoint of the simple wealth of talent, to faster information and more touring bands leading to more shows and lower prices — there is really no excuse to not get out and see some shows every now and then (or constantly if you’re lucky enough to live in Nashville).
We feel just as strongly, however, about recorded music. Let’s admit it, some nights you just want to stay in — and throwing on some tunes and kicking back is just about as good as it gets for music lovers like us. Between online streaming, YouTube, iTunes and the myriad of music services online, it’s not just the musical obsessives that have large collections to draw from nowadays; pretty much everyone can have a vast music library with minimal effort. I distinctly remember listening to the radio growing up, a blank cassette sitting in the boombox, waiting for a favorite song to come on so I could hit record as fast as possible and make a mix tape of all my favorite songs. I recall being amazed that I could run and still listen to music wherever I went thanks to this amazing Walkman device. I remember the last tape I bought (Stone Temple Pilots’ debut album Core) and the first CDs shortly afterwards (Soundgarden’s SuperUnknown and Green Day’s Dookie, which led to me carrying around one of those enormous CaseLogic 200-CD binders everywhere I went. It was necessary because I was “the music guy” in all my groups of friends, and where I went, I wanted to have my music with me. It wasn’t long afterward the iPod came out (remember those four buttons over the scroll wheel?) and I spent my entire savings at the time to buy one. That entire 200-CD binder now fit in my pocket! I don’t think it’s a stretch to call that a life-changing moment. After that I was never without a vast music catalog available at a second’s notice.
If this little trip down memory lane sounds familiar to many of you (or even parts of it depending on your age/obsession level), I’m glad. If you read this site, we can already tell you’re the type to which music matters, so you’ve likely noticed one thing we left out: vinyl.
Early on, records existed in my musical world, but I would still consider my grand musical awakening to be the moment my parents got me my first Walkman one Christmas and suddenly I could listen to my music wherever I was instead of my musical sphere existing of whichever station mom was playing in the car when we drove somewhere. After delving deeply into the world of portable music and carrying it with me wherever I went, vinyl didn’t even register a blip on my musical horizons until I learned the word “audiophile.”
When you just want to rock and surround yourself in as much music as possible, it seemed ridiculous that someone would want to play a dead medium like an LP.
“That Metallica song I dubbed onto my blank cassette sounds so amazing!” I’d say. “What the hell are those nerds talking about when they say the sound is awful?” Things like: the tape hiss ruins the musicians intent, mp3 compression makes you lose all your highs and lows, you still haven’t really heard the bass, etc.
As I got more and more into the business of music I started seeing it more and more, and thought it was just about the dumbest of hipster pretensions. “I can fit 1000 albums in my pocket on this iPod, and they sound fine, why would I ever buy a record?” Now that I have many years behind me in many aspects of the music world, I’m here to tell you that right now, in 2011, the ONLY way it makes sense to buy music is on a vinyl record.
A bold statement, I know. Surely you’re thinking to yourself now that I was spoiled by DJ-ing, or became one of those pretentious hipster audiophiles, but hear me out. Almost every band touring right now puts out their album on vinyl now. I’d go as far to say that at concerts it is more common to see a band with LPs at their table and not CDs than the other way around, and I go to a lot of concerts. That should be reason enough, as get obtaining music that bands are putting out is kind of the entire point of recorded music, but there are so many more reasons to stick with vinyl.
The big change came when most of the pressing companies began putting an mp3 download code in with new records. That one genius move solved the biggest strike against vinyl, and made CDs obsolete at the same time. Now when you buy a record, your album is just as portable as if you downloaded it from iTunes, or bought a CD and ripped it, you can put it on your iPod, stick it in your pocket, and take it anywhere. And you lose nothing on sound from your non-vinyl options. A typical CD sound quality is 128Kbps (which is roughly the midpoint for mp3s). You can have a standard mp3 at qualities anywhere from 96Kbps through 320Kbps, depending on how much sound quality you don’t mind losing vs. file size. And don’t take that too strongly, it’s difficult to tell the difference between 96 and 128 or even larger jumps in file quality unless you are seriously paying attention, but we’re making a point here: the mp3 you download off the code card in your record doesn’t sound any worse than a CD and, depending on the options, could be considerably better. They might even offer the download as a .wav file, which takes up a ton of disk space, but is far less compressed.
Some still argue that when you buy a CD, you get more than just the audio. That’s why people still buy CDs — to get album art, a physical copy to impress people with your musical tastes on a shelf in your bedroom, maybe some interesting liner notes, band photos, or a lyrics sheet if you’re lucky! I complete agree there; I’m the same way, I want that whole experience when I buy a new album, not just Track 1, Track 2, Track 3, etc.
So picture that physical copy of a CD, even one with great packaging, and then make it 10 times cooler. Now you have your vinyl record. The art is bigger and bolder, the lyrics sheet just might be a poster, there can be a book of interesting liner notes and band photos, and maybe they’ll go the extra mile, and you can have a crazy gorgeous die-cut gatefold album sleeve and then a colored vinyl disc. Any color you can imagine: blends, split colors, opaque or see-through; this is something you like to own to look at, and it blows the physical experience of owning a CD out of the water.
Now, thanks to mp3 download codes, it’s just as portable. Hell you can even buy a turntable with a USB output if you’re really dedicated and rip your older records without download codes to mp3s for your pocket iPod.
We haven’t even gotten to 7-inches ye! The 7-inch is what new bands will have before they can afford to put out a full length, it’s what established bands will release in limited numbers and crazy color schemes for collectability and, most importantly, it’s what you can pay $5 for at a show and own a recording from that killer band you just saw. Oh, and it really does sound better. Especially if you can get a good solid pressing (thicker is better) through good speakers.
Oh man.
Sure, maybe you don’t want the clutter, or maybe you can’t afford the space or monetary layout that a turntable, a receiver and a pair of speakers will cost you, and you can’t find a decent set cheap at your local Goodwill.
(Tip for testing turntables: put your hands on the table part; the less wobble, the better the table is an easy rule of thumb)
That’s understandable and those are perfectly valid reasons — and I would hope you still listen to music whatever way you can — but if you love recorded music, and you want to pick up all the newest stuff your local and touring bands are putting out, don’t buy a CD or download online if you can buy a record with a download code for roughly the same price. You’ll never miss out when someone is talking about the new black and red 7-inch they just scored at a show and, chances are, they won’t even be a pretentious hipster audiophile either. Just don’t get too carried away and start bidding on that Japanese press Beatles album you saw on eBay the other day and heard the sound is incredible — unless you happen to be independently wealthy, then by all means go hog wild, and give us a call – we’ve got ideas!
P.S. No, cassettes don’t make sense for a comeback in the same way as vinyl; maybe that tape hiss is charming on some stuff, and the rectangular look and feel is awesomely nostalgic, but you can drop a needle on a particular track and go straight too it on a record, like the way you’d skip tracks on a CD, if I ever fast forward or rewind again trying to find the start of a song, it’ll be too soon.
D.Rew
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