PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Vinyl - WIll it save the record business for artists

Several good things about Vinyl.

Easy to track sales and pay royalties.
Usually was easier to buy in a store than online.
They wear out or get scratched and need replacing.
Many people are convinced they sound better than anything else on the planet.
Artists had a bigger canvas, Musicians love artists
People will stick a bunch of money into vintage record players and hi fidelity equipment.

Statistics already show young music buyers have a high interest in vinyl. Record setting sales and the trend shows this buying frenzy is not going away.
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Billboard US vinyl sales up 53% 2016 first quarter
http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/6538585/us-vinyl-album-sales-up-by-53-in-q1
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Forbes 2015 US Vinyl sales up 30%
http://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2016/01/08/vinyl-sales-surged-30-percent-in-2015-led-by-adele-and-taylor-swift/#2e067cdf30f1

This trend could save music industry form the streaming disaster.

When vinyl was king large retailers sold plenty of expensive home audio gear. Record stores were buzzing with foot traffic. Malls were busier, people were happier, the world was a better place to live.

No it won't save artists. Too short of a supply of lathes to get vinyl made cheaply/quickly at present.

I believe it's somewhat of a fad.

Same thing is happening right now with cassettes, believe it or not.

Hipster fad.

Its not a fad. Demand caused new vinyl producing machines to be developed and manufactured.

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2015/12/07/after-30-years-a-new-vinyl-pressing-machine-is-being-created/

If its a fad Technics is making a misstep. WOW a new SL-1200. Look at that beauty, I sold quite a few in my music store.

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2015/09/02/the-technics-sl-1200-turntable-is-back/

I still have mine and I still use it.

I agree with RSN. I think it's a fad.

Citing articles of someone else's opinion as proof doesn't really mean anything. The only thing that matters is if it happens. As an example, there are tons of articles that indicate it is a fad as well...

Rolling Stone

That doesn't mean there's not money to be made though. With the sale of records people do want to play them on something. If you are pretty much the only company making a player, you pretty much are the option for people to play it on. That's just smart business. There is always money to be made in niche markets.

It doesn't however point to it ever being the dominant way people will consumer their music.

I get why people like it, but many times convenience and availability trump quality.

Well, if it does catch on again, you'll have to get one of these.

A fad, IMHO.

Headlines can be deceiving.

“U.S. Vinyl Album Sales Up by 53% in Q1”

From an article you cited:

“Vinyl sales currently account for “only a small fraction of the overall industry revenues” at around 2%”

2% of a crippled business devastated by streaming.

968,000 units sold by the top ten artists in a 5-year period. That's 193,600 units a year.

Fad.


Regards,

Bob

This is crazy funny! I have NEVER seen anything like that before. Thanks so much for the link! It made my day!

Great points Bob! Well thought out response!

That is so true. Examples are 8-tracks, cassettes and MP3s.

{edit}-for the record (pun intended) I buy CDs and I do not stream (steal) anything.

I don't know about this being a fad. Yes, it is not (yet) something for the mass market. But here in Germany there are quite a few vinyl stores that are thriving.

One of our larger electronics consumer chain, Saturn, has very large shelves with vinyl lps that are reprinted from the 50s and 60s with even their cover apearing very close to the original. I just took one name to search for and see what they offer: http://www.saturn.de/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/MultiChannelSearch?storeId=48352&langId=-3&searchProfile=onlineshop&channel=sedede&searchParams=&path=&query=vinyl+elvis

and here is another one of a different genre: http://www.saturn.de/webapp/wcs/stores/s...dizzy+gillespie

Maybe it is a fad, but with so many vinyl repressings of the heyday of vinyl, I'm not so sure.

Regarding me: Buying a new album in the sixties and seventies was an experience. Carefully selecting a album at the store, riding home with public transportation reading the liner notes, at home physically putting the record on the platter and see it turning was something else. That was nothing a CD or even more so mp3 cannot replicate.

Yep, the immediate gratification convenience factor has usurped the enjoyable ritual we used to have with vinyl. That included the care taken to keep the vinyl pristine (you don't need special brushes, cloths, cleaners, etc. with CD's or MP3's).

And while I am still working on digitizing my record album (and audio cassette) collection (unfortunately, I don't have a record player in the car, which is where I find myself listening to my music mostly these days), I still have about 1500 record albums in my man-cave. Almost all of them still play very well, with minimal pops/ticks. And my collection (which started at around 300 albums when I graduated from college and has grown over the years) has travelled (and survived) the world, as it went with me from the United States to Germany (where I was stationed with the US Army), and then back to the States to Georgia, Ohio, Virginia, and Florida.

@bob

You quoted this statistic "968,000 units sold by the top ten artists in a 5-year period." Then concluded "That's 193,600 units a year." Failing to realize very few of those records were sold in the first 3 years. Most of the vinyl has been sold in 2014-2015. From 0 to 1/2 a million units a year has made some major artists choose to release vinyl again,a record pressing manufacturer retool and manufacture a product that has been out of production for 30 years, and a iconic turntable manufacturer Technics (which had vanished from the earth) reappear on the market with their flagship product sl-1200.

I realize 2% seems like a small statistic. But that is 2% of "overall industry revenues" industry revenues include EVERYTHING and that means a lot more than just revenue from music sales. Performance revenue, licensing to movies, film, advertisement revenue. You cannot separate the Film industry from the music industry statistics when it comes to overall industry revenues. This is a significant source of revenue for artists. Possibly a shift in focus for young artists is to chase their dreams in a TV/Film placement rather than a record deal.

Other Music industry FADs???
Victrola,Records
Tube Amps, The Moving coil Loud Speaker Jensen/Magnavox
Talkies/music on film
Radio Music Entertainment Programing like Les Paul Mary Ford
TV Music Entertainment Programing
Stadium Music Concerts
Portable Pa Systems for Touring Musical groups Bob Heil
portable phonograph players
MultiTrack Recording Les Paul/AMPEX
National/Dobro electric lap guitar
Rickenbacker Guitar
Mosrite Guitar, Semie Moseley
Clyde Cooper Wah-Wah pedal
Fender solid body guitar
Les Paul Solid Body Guitar
Guitar Amps above 35 watts Ernie Ball, Dick Dale, Fender collaboration
Distortion Pedal Electro-Harmonix Big Muff
The cassette tape
Personal cassette recorders
Mix Tapes
Karaoke
Karaoke Clubs
American Karaoke Clubs in Japan
the Sony Walkman Cassette player
The transistor radio
the earphone (mono)
Electric Piano Fender Rhodes
8 track tape format, used in radio broadcasting for years before used for general music
FM Radio Stations
The CD
The Music Video/MTV
The synthesizer Bob Moog's, Synclavier, Oberheim
Hardware sequencing devices "Roger" LinnDrum,
Hardware Drum Samplers Thanks Roger and then Akai purchasing his technology.
MIDI - I remember the skeptics on this one
Computer Music Production
Music sequencing SW/Cakewalk Twelve Tone System/Voyetra/PG Music In the 80's We ARE ALL fads in the beginning.
The internet- Huge FAD will never catch on only for GEEKS
Pier to Pier music sharing / pirating music on a wholesale basis
MySpace/GeoCities/et all
Personal CD writers, make your own music CD
Electronic Drums
Music Retailers on line
Acoustic/Electric guitars. Thank you Barcus Berry
MP3 format - never catch on
the iPOD
iPhone
iPad
iTunes
earbuds
Bluetooth Speakers
Music Forums
YouTube

Everything starts out as a Fad, however, who wouldn't like a couple thousand shares of Apple Stock right now.

Edit added youtube

Both sides are right, and I'm out. This could go bad very fast. No one knows the future, and that's where the proof is.

Hear to Learn you ARE correct. Nobody knows the future. So I posed the question will it save the record industry for artists? Doomed to loose millions on streaming agreements, brave bold artists release Vinyl. If this trend continues I think it will help.

Yup, no worries on my end. Just stepping out in case people go to guns and start shooting

Good question though! I don't just don't know the answer. I say divide by 0 and we should be good

@HearToLearn we can revisit this in 10 years and see. Anybody got a DeLorean?

That is one option I would never consider for my albums. And just imagine spinning 45s...

That's funny! I had one last week but crashed it next week, so I will have to see...

Here's some vinyl pressing quote sites:

http://www.urpressing.com/quotegen12.php

http://www.erikarecords.com/12in%20Vinyl%20Record%20Pricing.pdf

http://www.discmakers.com/products/vinyl.asp

Looks like you're in it for at least $1500 just to get started with 200 units. For a marketplace that just doesn't have the equipment to use your product. $1500 for 200 saleable items. That's $7.50 each for cost. CD production for 200 units is about $700 at Discmakers. 10 day turnaround time vs. 19 weeks turnaround time for the vinyl.

Still smells like something that isn't going to save a marketplace.

I love the old album covers. I don't care for the sound and I have heard insanely expensive ($100,000+ systems) at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest https://www.audiofest.net/ that yes sounded wonderful, but knock 3 zeros off for me or at least 2 zeros off, and at that price range, I'll take ye olde CD format every dang day of the week. And I'll rip a 192 kbps mp3 file off of it and my aging ears will be happy to carry it around in my pocket with my Westone ES5 in ear monitors. If I'm feeling like splurging, I'll do a 320 kbps mp3 file and that will be just lovely.

It's a cool fad. Some artists could benefit by catering to the crowd that's into the fad. But competing with something that's about 1/2 the price for a much wider installed customer base, it's not the savior.

But I've never done either, but I'm considering it - so I've been looking at the math.

Best delivery for a small artist is still bandcamp and the like - free setup.