In fact, we are currently in an unprecedented era of vinyl quality and availability, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the 1970s; a vinyl renaissance, if you will. Whether it comes from a new generation of audiophiles, hipsters looking to up their vintage chic credit, or suburban DJs trying to scratch their own mashups, LP sales have gone up every year since around the middle of the past decade, while the numbers for compact discs have continued to plummet due to the increasing popularity of purely digital formats. Though it is difficult to pinpoint what exactly this trend can be attributed to, there is something to be said about the struggle between convenient technocracy and the humanity of tangibility.
I boarded this train of thought a while ago and reached a similar conclusion- people like to incarnate things they believe in and love. Humanity being wired as it is convenience will still triumph over almost everything for almost everyone, but there seems to be an evolutionary force behind the love of objects. When the object is profoundly unsatisfying, like the sterile & unlovely CD, people are quick to cast it over. But something as physically satisfying as the album can still triumph, even as it kicks over all the hurdles, cutting across every lane on the course of convenience.
The resurgence of the LP gives me hope that as time passes and an increasing number of physical worldly experiences are subsumed by the digital, people will start recalling their delight in tactile experience and rediscover the romance of the primary object.
Digital is a shadow cast by the real thing, or maybe more accurately a hologram.
A useful simulacrum certainly, immensely practical, but fundamentally, humanly unsatisfying.
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