As you’re no doubt aware, vinyl records have been making a pretty steep comeback in the last few years. So much that brand new records are being produced in the format. From Harry Styles to AC/DC, about 7% of sales in the music industry in recent years has been vinyl records and that number is steadily climbing up over time.
Some people might be wondering: Why? Why is this seemingly outdated medium making such a hard comeback? Is there a reason to invest in vinyl?
While vinyl records are often associated with the past, you may be surprised to learn that the biggest market for them right now is the millennial generation. Gen Z are also contributing a lot of purchases towards the medium. They could have been heavily influenced by their parents of the previous generation to invest in and appreciate vinyl, likely listening to them growing up. Now in their own adulthood, millennials are able to purchase records not only from the past, but of their own generation as well thanks to the recent resurgence and the releases of brand new vinyl records.
Wait, brand new vinyl records?
Yes! To this day, artists are releasing their new music onto vinyl for their listeners to enjoy. If you can name an artist, you can probably find a vinyl record for them at this point. Give it a go!
You could also be wondering, well, what’s the big deal? I have Spotify, I have iTunes. I don’t need vinyl when I have such an extensive library of music right at my fingertips. And that is true, but there are pros and cons to both mediums.
Most would argue that vinyl records sound better than their digital music counterparts. Why is this? Digital music is produced by translating digital signals back into analogue, losing some information in the process. Whereas with vinyl, the grooves on the disc store every single inch of the analogue without a middle man, not losing a single sound in the process.
Of course even brand new vinyls are still vinyls. With their incredible sound quality comes the price of their overall fragile format. The more they are played, the worse their quality becomes down to having to be played via a needle pressing down on the grooves of the spinning disk.
Unfortunately, some modern records are reportedly just digital versions slapped onto vinyl, so the sound quality that vinyl is defined by is lost.
But in general, just about any artist you can think of can be enjoyed in high quality vinyl format. Ed Sheeran, Adele, Fleetwood Mac, Olly Murs, Father John Misty, Abba, Oasis, Leela James, Bastille, Trombone Shorty, Alt-J, Colter Wall, San Fermin and The Wild Reeds. The sweet sound of uncompressed music from so many immensely talented artists is absolutely worth looking into. Is there anyone else on record you’d absolutely recommend to others? Let us know!
So are new vinyls worth my time?
If you like what you’re hearing and can accept the pros and cons hand in hand, then yes. It’s all down to you, the listener, at the end of the day. Ask yourself the little things:
Do I want to hear my music in a higher quality than I could have anywhere else? Do I want the absolute closest experience to hearing how these songs sounded while they were being recorded? Is this the listening experience I want?
If the answer is “yes, yes and yes”, then we couldn’t recommend more that you start looking into vinyl records. At a time where they’re swinging back, almost any artist you can think of likely has some so you can hear even popular artists of today like Rihanna with better sounding audio than you’ve ever heard her music in before!
Not to mention with modern records, they’ll be coming to you in mint condition. Never touched, never played before. You’ll be the first to play them, you’ll hear them at their absolute highest possible quality. On top of that, you’ll have your hands on a beautiful, mint vinyl cover! Cover art for vinyls can often be such an eye catcher, and with the size of them, you’ll have bigger and better looks at them than you ever would on a CD.
We receive a stock of new records very often. Check out this “New Vinyls” section of our website to see if there’s any you’re looking for!
