Vinyl Nation is the comprehensive documentary about vinyl – past and present – taking in the fandom, the production, its sound, and its history including its road-bumps, and a new generation of fans that smash the stereotype of it being the preserve of older white males. The vinyl record renaissance over the past decade has brought new fans to a classic format and transformed our idea of a record collector: younger, both male and female, multicultural. This same revival has made buying music more expensive, benefited established bands over independent artists and muddled the question of whether vinyl actually sounds better than other formats. Vinyl Nation digs into the crates of the record resurgence in search of truths set in deep wax.
Original title: Vinyl Nation
Directors: Christopher Boone, Kevin Smokler
This is the first time I’ve heard vinyl collectors had a stereotype. And I don’t believe that to have ever been true either. I’ve certainly never thought that.
I would have thought older males fit the stereotype perfectly - seems a preponderance of em in record fairs, record shops, forums and hifi enthusiasms…
Just watched this. Damn, the US has some huge vinyl stores. Makes the UK look like a cottage industry. Inspiring to see so many people talking passionately about vinyl. Perhaps
I should make my wife watch it to see if she gets it (“Don’t you have enough records already?”.
My wife is away for a week and a bit soon. She’s set my major task while she’s away as reducing my record hoard. If I had enough time, I’m tempted to set up a stall.
Just catching up on the daily important news and affairs on Lorraine (what else) - demonstrated a Crosley portable TT for your garden - they thought it’s brilliant and indeed part of the comeback, but noted it to be “quite pricey” at £89.99!
You could be right. I was interested to note that the new Pulp Album “More” released officially today is available on a cassette as well as LP and CD formats.
I went back to vynil a few weeks ago, I had one in the 80s and since then I only listen to CDs or streaming… I do not regret because the sound is very good, different from cd and streaming and better some times depending on the editions…
I agree. There is no comeback. It never entirely went away. I call it a resurgence.
When CDs came out in the 80s I watched record collectors around me sell their collections to replace them with CDs…and laughed…but also was bewildered by it. CDs didn’t sound better in those days. They sounded horrible. So many just got sucked in by the marketing. I held on to my records and never really embraced CDs except with a small collection to play in the car on road trips.
The resurgence started by the early 90s and has only continued full steam ahead aver since.
I never sold my records either. I did buy CDs (and still have them) many new albums were only released on CD back then. However, as far as record collecting is concerned I regard the late 80s/early 90s as the LP golden age for me as used LPs were very cheap and large amounts of very good condition ones readily available. I bought arm-fulls at a time even duplicates some I have later sold. It was fun.
I did this not because I knew records would become more popular again (or rather popular for a physical medium as all physical media sales are low compared to the mid-late 70s) but because I liked them better for several reasons and continue to think the same.
According to her website the new Margo Price LP is not only available as a reel-to-reel but also an 8-track cartridge. Had one of them in my car aeons ago - wonder if anyone can still play them?
