Vinyl frontier

THERE has always been a certain magic about vinyl. Okay, so a vinyl LP can be scratched and it might hiss and crackle. But it’s so much more real and solid than a CD, let alone a tune downloaded to your MP3 player.

The rituals associated with putting on a vinyl record make it an action to treasure: slipping the disc out of its sleeve; blowing to remove the dust, or else wiping it lovingly with a cloth; lifting the stylus to place it at the beginning of the track you want.

Then there are the sleeves: works of art during the days of vinyl, but so much less satisfying on a CD box.

Digital is much more convenient and easier to use, but where’s the soul?

Given that we are in an era when retro fashion is all the rage, it is hardly surprising that vinyl is beginning to make a comeback. According to Alex Fox, of Attic Records, in Patrick Pool, York, vinyl sales have gone up by 11 per cent over the past couple of years, while CD sales have gone down 30 per cent.

Major bands including Radiohead and The Horrors brought out vinyl releases last year. Vinyl is also big in dance music again – just like in the early 1990s during the explosion of rave music.

Underground DJs who have appeared in London-based internet television station Boiler Room TV have been releasing LPs and performing live sets and introducing turntables to a younger generation.

In the radio world, BBC Radio 6 dedicated New Year’s Day to a series of vinyl-only records. Blog and internet culture has also played a part in the awareness of vinyl. Creative art magazines including FACT and This is Fake DIY have played a prominent part in talking about its comforting appeal.

The vinyl renaissance is not all about nostalgia, however.

Staff at hi-fi equipment shop Sound Organisation Ltd, in Gillygate, stress that vinyl has always had an appeal – for the simple reason that it sounds better. “A record player has got human emotion and it has character,” says Bob Priestley, who works there.

The shop’s owner, Hamish MacDiarmid, who opened the store in 1984, agrees. Music downloaded on to your MP3 can be so compacted that the quality just does not compare. And even digital CDs can’t compare with the sound quality of a vinyl record, he says.

“There is more information in the record groove of a vinyl. It is analogue, not digital, so is more related to the flow of the music. Digital sound is chopped up into bits.” The more bits, the better the sound, but it still doesn’t compare, he says.

Sound Organisation Ltd has long been arguing this, even though it sells CD decks and digital streaming equipment, as well as old-style record decks. People didn’t believe them before. “But now they are beginning to,” Hamish says.

It isn’t simply a generational thing, either. The store sees older people coming in to look for record decks on which to play their vinyl records, but it has members of the younger generation asking for such decks too, Hamish says.

Alex Fox at Attic Records agrees. Located upstairs above a barbers shop, the store has a traditional record shop feel. The tiny cramped space is piled with vinyl records. One of the big things about vinyl – apart from the sheer joy of leafing through all that wonderful sleeve artwork – is its collectability, he says. A CD loses its value the moment you take it out of the shop. A vinyl disc can be an investment.

He thinks part of the upsurge in sales is also down to the hunger for retro fashion. But like Hamish at Sound Organisation, he stresses it isn’t only the older generation trying to recapture their past who is buying vinyl. “We get a real mix of people: from guys who have been collecting for 30 or 40 years to students.”

Inkwell Vintage Shop, in Gillygate, is a hub of student activity. On a chilly winter day, the shop is a welcoming place, its warmth and golden brown colours a relief from the cold of the street. Inside, you can get everything from comics to vinyl records. It is the kind of place where you can lose yourself, exploring the cultures and tastes of a different time.

Paul Lowman, who runs the shop, believes that during an economic recession, vinyl offers comfort and reassurance: it harks back to a time when the world appeared simpler.

Part of the appeal is also undoubtedly the wonderful sleeve artwork. A girl once walked into his shop once and bought £40 worth of vinyls despite not owning a record player, he says.

But there is more to the appeal of vinyl than that. For example, the local music scene is now taking more of an interest in bringing out LPs, Paul says. “Over the last year or so it has really taken off. When local bands come, they’re putting out 7 inch singles.”

Whatever the reason, the resurgence of interest in vinyl is good news for independent record stores, he believes. “Three or four years ago, these kind of independent record shops would not have existed. This shop is an example of how record stores are going to be. If a town is lucky enough to have a music shop in two to three years, it will be an independent store.”