Wired Magazine’s provocative article on the resurgence of vinyl has drawn the thoughts of Vinyl Collective owner Virgil Dickerson. It’s a long read, but Virgil is a man of truth.
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“Wired recently published a piece called, “Vinyl May Be Final Nail in CD’s Coffin”. It is an interesting look at Vinyl’s recent rise in popularity which has become a hot topic amongst various publications. Since this piece ran on Monday, I have had at least a dozen links to the story forwarded to me. I would like to offer my own thoughts on the post.
I run a vinyl-only online store and vinyl imprint called Vinyl Collective. I started this in August of 2006 when I had a strong feeling that a focused vinyl site and community might receive a favorable response. I had been releasing vinyl through my label, Suburban Home, since the very beginning and as a music fan, I have long loved the format. I have released vinyl for bands like Every Time I Die, Minus the Bear, Fear Before the March of Flames, Portugal the Man, Drag the River, Tim Barry, and I have upcoming records coming out from Sparta, the Playing Favorites, Minus the Bear, Every Time I Die, Norma Jean, Poison the Well, Portugal the Man, and more.
As I type this on the final day of October, I can attest to the fact that Vinyl’s momentum is on the rise. Our sales for the month doubled what we did in September and September was previously our best month. We have been so busy that we have decided to hire a part-timer to help out with orders, a decision we were very careful in making as we recently downsized our operations in May of this year due to our declining revenue from CD sales.
As much as I can back up Wired’s claim in a rise in vinyl sales, it is in no way the final nail in CD’s coffin. I offer the following data with a release we licensed for vinyl, Minus the Bear’s Planet of Ice. As of last week, the album has soundscanned 31,000 copies (digital and CD sales combined); we have sold nearly 3,000 copies of the double LP version of the album. I expect this album to soundscan around 100,000 copies by this time next year and IF we continue to repress the album on vinyl, it might be possible that we could do 10,000 copies on wax. I might also add that when speaking of Soundscan (they were quoted in the Wired piece as saying, “Our numbers, at least, don’t really point to a resurgence,”), they have no idea what they are talking about. I mentioned selling nearly 3,000 copies of Planet of Ice and you know how many were registered through Soundscan? Zero! I made the decision not to put a barcode on the record and have made no attempts to sell it to chain stores. Chain stores don’t know what to do with vinyl and I would rather indie stores make money off of my products. Nearly all of the records have been sold through the Vinyl Collective website or through mom and pop retailers, many of which don’t even report to Soundscan. Soundscan is an antiquated gauge of sales and only scratches the surface with regards to vinyl sales. Labels like No Idea, Fat Wreck, Death Wish, Bridge 9, Asbestos, and so many more sell a bulk of their vinyl pressings directly to customers and not one of them report those sales to soundscan.
I would like to offer my opinion on why I think vinyl sales are on the rise. In this absolutely fucked up, fast paced world we live in, there is something therapeutic about physically picking up a needle, placing it on Side A of a record, and sitting back enjoying the music that comes out of your speakers. CDs and digital has made music disposable and of little to no value and in most cases, it has become background noise for our crazy lives. With vinyl, you have something real, something tangible, something with beautiful artwork, something that sounds absolutely amazing. Vinyl makes music special, unique, and well, you actually feel a part of it. It has become so easy to record a band’s music and to release it to the world as a CD or digitally that music has become so incredibly oversaturated. No music fan can possibly keep up with even 1 percent of the new music that comes out on a weekly basis. With vinyl, it costs so much more and is such a bigger process that it almost weeds out much of the bullshit. When someone decides to release something on wax, you are taking a very big risk with a much smaller payoff. The price it cost us to press the first pressing of 2,000 copies of Minus the Bear’s Planet of Ice, I could have pressed 12,000 CDs. And speaking of Planet of Ice, nothing beats the day I received the first pressing. Take a look for yourself (photos of 1st press and test pressings – available at the site linked above). The packaging is beautiful; as of this writing we have pressed it on 6 different colors and there are collectors out there who have purchased all 6. Vinyl puts the art back into music and allows bands to offer their fans their albums exactly how they had envisioned it. It gets fans excited and gives them something to be passionate about. I mean, who out there actually collects mp3s? Its like saying you collect air. With vinyl, you are getting something in some cases only 100 other people have. It is the ultimate homage to your favorite band to own the rarest pressing of a release or as some of our customers do, collect every single color of every single pressing of a release. Look at our message board and you will see people posting all day and night discussing new releases, wishlists for records, photos of their records, pretty much everything and anything about vinyl (nearly 30,000 posts so far). There is even a thread about the Wired piece. I can go on and on about why I love vinyl, but it will never replace CD as the format of choice because people actually have to make an effort to buy, collect, and listen to vinyl. But you know what? That is ok with me. I don’t have any visions of grandeur when it comes to my thoughts on the vinyl format. I just hope to carve out my own little niche and hope that I can do well enough to put dinner on the table and to provide for my family.
I love the fact that people are talking about vinyl and know that pieces like the one on Wired’s website will create more enthusiasm about this beloved format. I just hope people don’t get the idea that there are riches to be had putting out vinyl and that this is music’s next big trend. I’d like to close with the following LL Cool J lyric, Don’t Call It a Comeback, I’ve Been Here for Years.”
