Written and photographed by Hannah Jones
Vinyl records seem to be one of those fads popping back up with the twenty-somethings of today. And do you know who brought them back?
The hipster. The cuffed-jean-wearing, granola-eating, indie-music fanatic.
Sitting on the floor of their bedroom with tapestries and Christmas lights draping down the walls, they listen to their Urban Outfitters record player, which spins a Beatles LP they dug up at some local record store. Insert scoff here, right? That might be a little unfair.
The way we listen to music has changed tremendously over the past few decades. We went from record players to CD players to MP3 players to iPods. And with the iPod came iTunes, an online store with every track or album we could ever want. Buying and downloading our music became easy, and we stored it all in these large digital libraries compiled neatly on our laptops.
In the past few years, though, competition has sprung up to challenge iTunes. New websites like Pandora and Spotify now allow for music streaming that’s free. No longer do we have to pay to download something. We can just stream it online. Music piracy and illegal downloading, practices that have been around since even before iTunes, contribute to this free music trend as well. Paying for music isn’t cool anymore.
‘Oh, those poor, absurdly rich singers aren’t getting their 15 bucks?’ people ask, ‘Well, they’ve got enough money as it is.’
But that’s not really the point. You wouldn’t expect to take a print from a photographer or a painter without paying for it, would you?
Maybe it’s this more moral thought process, or maybe it’s just another hipster fad, but now all of a sudden buying is back. People are paying for their music again, but instead of reverting to the CD, we’re reverting back to vinyl records. And at roughly $30 a pop, it’s not cheap. But it’s not just about buying music; it’s about the experience, too. The hipster culture right now is all about bringing back what is considered retro. Whatever you parents or even grandparents listened to is now cool again. Which means that rich vinyl sound is also cool.
So many people are ready to throw whatever hipsters do to the wolves, but is vinyl really so hipster that we should scoff at anyone who cops to being a lover? Is it really that bad? Maybe I’m a hipster, maybe that’s why I don’t think it’s that terrible. There’s something that seems so nice about the image of lying on the floor of your room, listening to the rumble and crack of a record of your favorite band.
Is it the art school I attend or the hipster-frequented retail store I work for that influences me? Either is highly possible, but I don’t quite see the need for scoffing. If the reemergence of vinyl means that people will start buying their music again, then cool.
