Opinion: The great 21st century vinyl revival - long may it live

I was in Golden Discs in Sligo recently and it was as if I had entered a time warp. There was shelf upon shelf of records - hundreds of vinyls in all their glory.

My kids were with me and they were browsing enthusiastically through classics from the sixties, seventies and eighties which sat comfortably alongside modern offerings that will go on to become the remembered masterpieces of this generation.

Ok, it wasn’t quite the same as being in a record shop 40 years ago. For example, there was no singles section, no record player stylus stand, no cork board display of button badges depicting the pop and rock icons of the day.

There were some other quite nice items though, like tote bags printed with iconic album covers - Abbey Road, Dark Side of the Moon, and more. And there was also a decent selection of turntables for all budgets.

I love that vinyl has come back into the mainstream, so much so that HMV which closed its last stores in Ireland in 2016 has now re-entered the Irish market, citing the demand for vinyl records as the reason for its return.

Vinyl first became popular in the 1950s, though it had been around for a good twenty years before that. It went from being used almost exclusively by radio DJs because of its convenience and sound quality, to being mass produced and widely distributed as more and more people owned their own record players. 

Vinyl records brought the voices of beloved artists right into people’s homes in a way that meant they could listen to them anytime they wanted, and over and over again if they so chose. 

The popularity of vinyl lasted into the eighties, when it shared the market with cassettes. Smaller and more portable than vinyl, cassettes were proving a popular alternative especially with the invention of the Walkman and boombox. 

However, the CD blew both out of the water, though its heyday would turn out to be relatively short.

I can remember seeing my first CD, and being amazed at how small and solid it seemed, and how smoothly the CD player operated. I loved that you could skip forward to favourite songs without risking an irreparable scratch to the disc with a slip of a finger when lowering the stylus.

You could carry CDs with you in the same way you could carry a cassette - without ever having to deal with yards of tape getting caught up in the play heads, or snapping, or stretching so that the music became drawn out, distorted, and painful. 

And then one day I went into a local music shop and noticed that the last remaining record stand was gone. I felt quite sad, remembering the excitement of buying a new record, the cardboard sleeve still having that fresh paper and ink smell, the black vinyl pristine and full of promise. 

I could still feel the joy of watching the stylus sit into the groove of the record, hearing that slight thunk and crackle in the speakers, like an intake of breath before the magic revealed itself and began to play out.

I’ve kept every one of them, and they still get dusted off and played from time to time. Even the scratches and skips are comforting in their familiarity, like the battle scars of old friends who have been through a lot together.   

So many things in life aren’t appreciated until they are gone. 

It was only when apps such as Spotify and iTunes brought the digital music experience to its fullness that people began to realise something was missing. 

There is a depth of sound and a quality of warmth and resonance that digital music has completely failed to attain. 

And there is something about holding a physical record in your hand that gives it a value that is worthy of the creativity and commitment of the artist. It feels right that it is something to be valued, to be handled with care. It is after all, someone baring their soul so that you can better make sense of your own. 

Don’t get me wrong, I use digital music apps - enthusiastically, most of the time. I have playlists of rock classics, of chill out music, of dance tunes, playlists for driving, for working out, for summer, for Halloween, Christmas, for late nights on the road when I need the tempo to be enough to help me stay alert but not so fast that I’ll break the speed limit. 

But there are times when having almost all  of the music that has ever been recorded, there at your fingertips, becomes boring. It loses its meaning and its value.

I met someone recently that I hadn’t seen since school, and he reminded me about how we used to share music. A cassette tape passed from one to the other and tucked into the inside pocket of a denim jacket to be taken home, recorded, and returned the next day.

It was a nostalgic conversation, and one that lingered with me. It reminded me of full albums that I hadn’t listened to in years. It caused me to reflect a lot on how the way we consume music has changed.

And it shone a light on how, in the midst of all that is fake and shallow, at a time when there is so much focus on the capabilities of artificial intelligence, artists are choosing to release their new music on vinyl. There are some modern artists whose voices or trademark sound really lends itself to vinyl. I’m thinking of Sam Smith, Hozier, Lana del Ray, to name but a few. 

They - and their fans - are embracing what this old technology has to offer in all its wonder and in all its fragility. 

Long may it live.