Greetings peasants! What, are you still listening to MP3? Should You Buy MP3 Players? Should You Buy MP3 Players? Remember how everyone used to have an MP3 player? In the days before the iPhone, MP3 players were a must-have item. Smartphones have consumed MP3 player sales over the years:why buy a… Read More That's lovely . Look, as someone who knows more about music than you, I think it's my duty to tell you that there is a better way. It's called vinyl.
Nerd. Vinyl didn't die when Janis Joplin did. He is still very much alive, and it is much preferable to listening to music in digital format. Come, get on my fixie. We'll take a trip to the record store and I'll tell you the four reasons why you should ditch 12" vinyl records digitally.
Lets play a game. Go to your local record store (every good city should have one) and try to find the Justin Bieber Believe , which sold nearly 1,500,000 copies in 2012. Nothing?
Okay, try again. See if you can find anything for Nickelback. Nothing Good, now see if you can find anything for The Pixies. What is a full shelf worth? Why do you think that could be?
Simple economics, my friend. People who listen to vinyl tend to be pretty picky about what they listen to. They don't listen to airy, saccharine, Top 40 effs with synth instruments. They listen to bands that have artistic integrity, and actually write their own songs and play their own instruments. They listen to great songwriting and listen to the production. A quick look at iPad as a music production tool. A quick look at iPad as a music production tool. When deciding whether one can justify buying a tablet, one rarely does. Production is a factor in the decision-making process, but it should. Read more . As a result, the bands that meet those criteria are the ones you'll find in your local record store.
When you listen to vinyl exclusively, you subconsciously make a decision not to have to face Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus. And that's lovely.
In a hidden corner of my hometown is a small independent record store called Probe Records. This has been a Liverpool institution for the longest time. Generations of Scousers have grown up visiting this place and spending hours and hours wandering through its vast collection. Me included.
There is something wonderful about buying records. It's the kind of experience that's sadly lost on the iTunes and Spotify generation.
It's the kind of experience where you show up and spend hours and hours aimlessly searching for music. You can bet and deposit money on the albums without knowing if they will be good or not. You talk to people and get their recommendations and opinions, and finally you make friends.
It's a much more social experience than any app or online marketplace could ever to be.
I'm sorry, friends. This is not up for debate. Vinyl sounds better than MP3 ever. I'm not just talking about that warm, rich mahogany sound that vinyl is famous for, but in general. It's better.
Most of the music you listen to is stored and output in a lossy format, where details are lost and quality is reduced. This is because the audio is compressed. How does file compression work? How does file compression work? File compression is at the core of how the modern web works, one could argue, because it allows us to share files that would otherwise take a long time to transfer. but how does it work? Read More
It doesn't matter if you're listening to a streaming service like Spotify (but not why Tidal by Jay Z's Tidal Music streaming service is doomed why Jay Z's Tidal Music streaming service is doomed flop) Jay Z recently relaunched Tidal, the music streaming service he acquired for $56 million. Tidal has 99 issues and Ringtone is one. Read More You don't have the complete image of that track yet..
Vinyl is what is called a lossless format. Nothing has been lost by pressing a disk. Sounds as good as the producer or band intended.
There is another, much more important reason why vinyl is better than anything else..
Vinyl, for the most part, escaped the 'loudness war'. You'll see that with the rise and rise of digital music (including CDs) it's now possible to design 7 Free Resources To Learn About Sound Engineering 7 Free Resources To Learn About Sound Engineering Here are some great resources for you to use if want to learn more about how to make great music recordings. Read More The problem here is that it has a very detrimental result on the audio quality.
In fact, it makes songs sound distorted and unpleasant to listen to, and robs them of their depth and texture. Since vinyl is an analog format, it doesn't really suffer from the same problems. You don't believe me. Check out this comparison between the CD version of the Red Hot Chili Peppers Hump de Bump , and the vinyl version.
When you buy an MP3 on iTunes, there is no way to turn that purchase into an investment that will earn you money later. That's because you don't own that particular MP3. You simply license it.
But vinyl? That's a completely different beast..
There is an entire industry of people who buy, collect and resell vinyl, because it overwhelmingly maintains its purchase value, or even appreciates its value.
When you collect vinyl, you're not just buying music. You are making an investment that you can sell on a rainy day, or even pass on to your children.
There are even apps and websites, like MyRecordList MyRecordList - List, Search &Share Your Vinyl, Cassette &CD Collection MyRecordList - List, Search &Share Your Vinyl, Cassette &CD Collection Read More - that makes the process much easier.
Vinyl is an old technology, and it has remained relatively unchanged in the last decade. But that's because it's as close as we'll get to a perfect device for listening to music. It is, to be as simple as possible, just the best it can be.
Do you agree? Disagree? Do you think I'm a pretentious hipster asshole? Either way, drop me a comment below and we'll chat.
