EXTROVERT SPRING 2016

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8 IS VINYL BACK IN TOWN? Cian Smith investigates the recent rise in vinyl sales and which format is better CD, vinyl or MP3. Here we are in the in the 21st century. A technological boom period in the last 15 years has seen the way we listen to music change forever. 2001 saw the introduction of the iPod, a revolutionary new product designed to give us access to a library of up to 1000 songs at any one time, a far cry from the record shops and LP’s of yesterday’s world. So why in 2015 are we seeing vinyl make a comeback? In 2014 sales of vinyl albums were at their highest in twenty years with over 1.3 million units sold - an astonishing number when we consider how easily we can access music for free. Streaming services such as Spotify, Deezer and TIDAL allow us to listen to almost any artist on the planet at the push of a button. To help me find the answer to my conundrum, I grabbed my copy of The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album on vinyl and prepared to play it. Before I even took the LP from its sleeve I was distracted by the album cover. As I had not played the album in a while I forgot about the fantastic art work on the cover. I was already lost in a maze of faces trying to name all of them. This, to me, is like looking at the menu in a restaurant, the anticipation of enjoying the food even before it has arrived. Removing the LP from its sleeve was an adventure in itself, peeling back the thin paper to reveal the black disc, taking care not to put my hand on the grooves, gently lowering the LP onto the turntable of my record player. I lifted the arm with my little finger, lowering it down like I was landing a helicopter. The crackling began as I took my seat looking forward to enjoying the record. It was like an occasion, making the decision to listen to the record felt like more than just something to do when I’m not doing anything. It’s not just listening to the record that feels like an occasion, it’s the actual choice you’ve made beforehand. Choosing a record feels like a heartbreaking decision and a commitment you need to stick to. Walking along the rack in the record shop is like a trip to the sweet shop. Lots of different and wonderful colours and faces
9 with illegal file sharing being so easy nowadays? “Yeah I do, because MP3 s are so easily shared, so easily accessed, you know, when people choose that accessibility over security, because the only way someone is going to pirate a vinyl is to get into your house and take it from you. It’s the only way they’re going to get a free copy. With MP3s it’s a simple copy and paste function, and they can email that file to whoever they want. When websites like Deezer and Spotify became big it was easy for them to take the MP3 from that website and share it with their friends. People saw websites like Deezer as illegal and tried to shut them down because they were taking artists’ music and were giving it away; taking artists’ music and people were paying nothing, just sharing it. If you take an artist’s song you pay for the artist’s song and you pay £2 or whatever, and you get that as an MP3 and share it with seven or eight people, you’ve cheated an artist out of £16 - it doesn’t sound like much but when thousands upon thousands or even millions of people are doing it, it does lead to an effect. It leads to artists thinking, ‘Is there any hope for us?’ and that MP3s could be the end of artists. They might be the make or break so they are quite a scary thing but they’re also a necessity.” That’s great. Thanks for having a chat with me Ciaran. Ciaran Harper with his band trying to grab your attention: Elvis Presley’s If I Can Dream, Oasis – What’s the Story Morning Glory? Jeff Lynne’s ELO with Alone in the Universe. There are so many choices but you must pick the right one. Before I went further I wanted to get a second opinion, So I asked musician Ciaran Harper (Pictured) what he thought. Why do you think MP3 is better than vinyl? “It’s easier you know, the idea that you can have terabytes of information and store an entire music library on one device. It attracts a lot of people over going out and spending. People spend £15 on a vinyl and then have to make space in their house in order to store the vinyl. And you’re going to have to buy a record player and that’s quite a lot these days as well. It’s more about accessibility than it is quality because some vinyls have better quality than MP3 because of MP3 is compressed and squished down to be that small. People will choose MP3 over vinyl because of its ease of access and you’re still getting the music that you want even if it is lower quality.” Secondly, why do you think vinyl has made a recent comeback? I mean, in 2014 vinyl had over one point three million sales and I’m curious to see why you think that is. “Vinyl is more of a fashion statement than anything, looking scruffy came back in, 2014 was the year of the hipster and with that came the idea of vinyls. People took an interest in vinyl and decided, you know, they’re old. You get a battered vinyl out of a sleeve and it’s just more a fashion statement than an actual utility.” Well, that segues quite nicely into my next question: given that you are a musician yourself, would you release on vinyl if you were given the opportunity? “Yeah definitely because… with vinyl being so popular these days and with it still being a fashion statement and people still buying vinyl, artists like, Arctic Monkeys, Mhuse are still releasing on vinyl, it just gives us another outlet. It gives us a stable income, because it’s coming straight to us and doesn’t have to go through websites or companies or anything like that we get (the) majority of the profit. So it’s always going to be an attractive outlet. It has opened up a whole new stream of revenue for artists, it’s given them something… it’s given them hope really, that they will be able to make a sustainable living as a musician.” Do you think that MP3 has taken away a bit of that living I went about listening to the same album (the Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band) on my phone. Straight away I realised the album artwork was ruined by the small screen and the magic was lost immediately. It seems for accessibility we lose quality. Speaking of quality, the sound of the music in comparison to the vinyl album was very good. Each and every one of the songs seemed to be clearer and less bumpy. The songs never got stuck and I didn’t have to flip the record over every time the album reached the halfway point. As the album was playing I could appreciate every last note while not having to fiddle with the knob on my record player to make sure that the record played through both speakers or having to worry whether the needle on my record player was going to break. However, as I was listening to my music I had this feeling that the record lacked a certain innocence and nakedness that I love about my LP. The crackles in the sound, the sudden change in pitch that the record has, the primitive recording techniques along with lack of modern editing software. These factors all make the listening feel even better, and somehow create a more honest experience. I then went online to have a look on YouTube to see how many artists have published their music on the site. I first searched Eric Clapton using the site’s built in search engine. The first result was a video, showing the star playing one of his biggest hits, a ballad showing his love for model Pattie Boyd - Layla. The video was not uploaded by Clapton’s label, or his official YouTube channel, but by a fan. Although they may not know it, fans like these are stealing the artist’s work by doing this. Music piracy is nothing new. Before the internet we had bootleg copies of records, made by either stealing, ripping and burning a copy onto a blank CD. Alternatively, fans recorded live performances. Although most artists are opposed to this some see it as a way for poorer people to listen to good music for free. Liam Gallagher said, “I don’t mind it. I hate all these big, silly rock stars who moan--at least they’re downloading your music...and paying attention, know what I mean? You should appreciate that. What are you moaning about?” This might be a reason people still listen to vinyl, people who want to support an artist decide they want a physical copy of the music for their money so they’re willing to pay just that little bit extra for their music to own this music. Does this large piece of plastic help you show your love for your artist? Clearly if you want to listen to vinyl it’s going to be an expensive choice. It’s no secret that vinyl records are more expensive than MP3 or CDs along with the cost of a record player and the goods you need to maintain the records and record player. Maybe we will never find out what it is about record and vinyl that makes us want to collect and treasure these fragments of the past. Who knows, maybe one day we will scrap our iPods and CDs in favour of these time honoured creations.
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EXTROVERT SPRING 2016

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