WMRE Executive Staff - Campus Life

Vinyl Fetish
Zine Poll
If you had to listen to just one band for the rest
of your life, what would it be?
Miles Davis & The Cool School – Nalini Abhiraman
The Beatles – Valerie Gaimon
The Roots – Daniel Spivack
Reel Big Fish – Lauren Baker
Radiohead – Marnie Florin
Beat Happening – Chris Daresta
Led Zeppelin – David Ogles
David Marek – Neutral Milk Hotel
The Velvet Underground – Andrea Gunadi
Have you noticed a superfluity of vinyl record sections and store openings around Atlanta? I’m all for
the retro craze when it comes to music, fashion and design, however, retro technology is something we can all
be without. Do we really need to relive a world without microwaves, jet engines or Toaster Strudels? If that’s
the case, I’m first in line to return my ringer T-shirts to Urban Outfitters.
Purists maintain the sound quality is unbeatable. There is supposed to be a warm, homey quality that
gets sucked out by the heartless bastards who digitally re-master music onto CDs. I can imagine my vinylhappy
friends in their best Jon Stewart impressions asking, “Dude, have you ever listened to Led Zeppelin IV?
Have you listened to it… on vinyl?”
Yes, in fact, I have. The only difference I found is that the music “popped” and “hissed” more than on
CD (in fact CDs never pop or hiss, that’s why they were invented) and I had to get up, turn over the record and
place the needle back on the 12” hunk of obsolescence before I got to hear “Misty Mountain Hop.”
Ok, I’ll admit that there is something cool about “roughing it” like the old days. I enjoy camping and
hiking as much as the next guy (only if I can bring my portable mist-fan). But is it really practical to buy music
on a medium you have to sell off if you move across the country? I’ve heard several horror stories of DJs
having to pawn off each of their records for a buck apiece, because it would require an entire moving truck to
transport all of them to their new house
Maybe it’s not the sound itself that has revitalized interest in the LP. To me, the recent vinyl trend is
a backlash against the death of cover art. The digital revolution has effectively destroyed any awareness
or appreciation among our generation for album covers. Show me any college student scouring for music
through Instant Messenger or iTunes for an album cover, and I’ll show you a college student who won’t
recognize the band, album, release date, or record label under which it was released. Some of the most
recognizable pieces of art in the last few decades have been on album covers, from Pink Floyd to David Bowie
to the naked people on the Frankie Goes To Hollywood cover. People like to look at pretty things, and perhaps
this is a reason for people to buy vinyl.
But I think the vinyl trend can be attributed to one more aspect of our conversion to digital music. Frank
Zappa once said, “Communism doesn’t work because people like to own stuff.” Using his logic, maybe mp3s
won’t totally eliminate record stores in the future. People like to have a sense of ownership when they buy
something, and vinyls have become rare enough recently for even the greatest albums to become collector’s
items. One can take great pride in a large mp3 collection (my hard drive is bigger than your hard drive) but
what is the real financial impact of losing 10,000 songs that you never bought or properly owned to begin with?
Lose even 20 vinyl records and your friends will be hearing about it for months, especially if one was a rare
import.
All right, I admit I jumped on the vinyl bandwagon a few months ago. If you ever stared into the cover
of Elvis Costello’s This Year’s Model and saw your reflection in his big, goofy glasses, you would understand.
In the meantime, I’ll see you crazy retro kids thumbing through the antiques section at the local Value
Village.—David Ogles