Vinyl Revival: 4 Reasons Vinyl Made a Comeback

A lot of us have not yet realized it, but vinyl is actually coming back again. Many may argue that vinyl never really left the scene for them anyway, but we are not discussing a niche, secluded market of collectors here, but an astounding figure of 14 million vinyl record sales in 2017!

This leads us to the obvious question - with the availability of so many digital platforms for streaming music, why are millions of people still buying vinyl records in 2020? Let’s try and find out the answer next.

Vinyl Records Connect Listeners to their Music by Providing a Sense of Tangibility

Music is not exactly a tangible concept, and neither is streaming, which kind of alienates music and listeners from each other. Vinyl records, on the other hand, had always been a medium for connecting the listeners to their music, by providing a sense of tangibility to the very concept.

The artwork, the physical record inside, the unique notes in every cover, etc. gives that much-needed feel of connection and ownership to the buyer. In case you have no idea what we are talking about here, just try it once and you will notice how it feels different to actually own a record, as opposed to subscribing to a streaming service.

Vinyls Produce Better Sound Quality

Another ironically true fact is that vinyl records can store music at significantly better quality than compressed digital music. It’s ironic, because even after all these decades, digital music, for the most part, has not managed to surpass the classic vinyls in terms of audio quality! Now, FLAC files are exceptions here, but they are not easily available, they consume a whole lot of data, and any streaming service that offers music in FLAC will charge a lot more.

A point to be noted here is that you can only tell the difference with the best record player for your favorite vinyls. It doesn’t matter how good a recording is, if the turntable is not up to the mark, it cannot possibly output the full quality which vinyls represent.

They are Reconnecting Listeners to the Actual Music

Most of us are so used to treating music as background noise, that we have actually forgotten how to enjoy it. The most popular mode of listening for a large majority of the population is to put on some headphones while commuting, working, studying, dancing, doing chores, etc. There’s also music in parties, nightclubs and social gatherings, but once again, it turns music into background noise.

That is not how music was originally intended to be listened to, because multitasking essentially reduces our favorite tracks down to white noise! The experience of listening to vinyl records, however, is not the same. Younger generations that had never even experienced tunes in any other way before are finding out that there is a better way to listen to music, enjoy it more, and actually connect to it. Relax with a high-quality vinyl record player by your side, and let the humble machine play your favorite tracks in perfect smoothness. Just one, long listening session can absolutely change the very way you ever listen to quality songs, melodies, and compositions ever again. The classic medium creates a personal experience like nothing else can today.

Role of Vinyl Record Collectors in Reviving the Medium and the Culture

Up until three or four years back, the mention of vinyls was limited to nostalgic chats, celebrity talk shows and of course, the collectors. Now that vinyl is finally making a serious comeback, we have to give a large amount of the credit to those collectors for making it happen.

They kept the tradition alive by collecting elusive and often highly expensive old records and turntables. If it weren’t for them, this revival wouldn’t have happened, simply on account of the fact that nobody from the current generation would have even realized what they were missing out on. Now that they have realized what kind of a unique experience vinyl records can provide, the largest names in the game such as Sony have started producing vinyl records again from 2017.

It seems that the love for vinyl and its prodigal comeback isn’t only about nostalgia. In spite of being decades older, these classic discs really do have some significant advantages going for them, even among the millennials and the Gen-Z crowd.

While we are not sure how much it will exactly affect the growth of digital streaming, there is no doubt that vinyl records have already found a strong footing back into the music industry. After all, $395 million in revenue (2017) from a single medium of physical records is astoundingly good in this age of cheap, always available streaming services. Quality is beating quantity in music, like it always should have.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes.