Does the music biz now see a good reason to promote vinyl?

Plus, the rack jobbers servicing the discount stores focused on the popular hits and less on the deeper catalog, just like they do servicing Wal-Mart, Target and Best Buy to this very day but that's another topic.

 

I think the music industry desperately wants to get rid of all physical media because it is an expense to manufacture and transport.
But at the same time industry in general will fill any hole in the market it it sees if there are willing customers.
And as long as there is a demand for vinyl and they can charge absurd prices and people will pay it, they will keep making it, even if begrudgingly.
The music industry knows that most people could care less about audiophile sound, and they also know that there is a large enough amount of people, however small a segment of the buying public, that will buy something that is perceived as audiophile quality.
Just as there are those who will pay an insane price for tennis shoes because they have a certain label sewed to them or a certain watch because it has a certain name on it.
The bottom line is, if it sells somebody will make it if they don't get squashed by regulations and other means of stopping competition.
And so far nobody has found a way to demonize vinyl, and there is a market for it. A cash in hand market.

Also, the music industry is well aware that their biggest competitor for vinyl is vinyl of the past in used shops and yard sales everywhere. They know they are competing with that. And they know if the quit making vinyl that consumers will just switch to buying it used rather than downloading or buying other hard copy formats.
So, the real bottom line is used vinyl has the music industry by the balls right now.

 

But forgetting of course that vinyl record collecting -seen in today's present muisc climate- is one of the purest exercises available, to exist in a 'hypochondria heaven' while waiting to proclaim oneself as a perfect O.C.D candidate.was NOT and never will be meant to be :
To run around, desperately - no doubt in vain - in the 21st Century - to obtain enough choice of good vinyl material to actually play. It is akin: to running around looking for any second -hand -available RCA type CD-4 vinyl , hoping someone has not worn out the extra over-laid supersonic signals on those standard discs' grooves for its CD-4 benefits, to be even heard or hinted at...
The lack of choice of RANGE of what a consumer can actually buy in a given product / as against an viable altenative one ......is the final ( even if gradual /or slow) killer - the historical demise of any particular product.
What people miss in any associated discussion of "Is that a CD silver small disc is not as cumbersome "in concept magnitude" as against that of a computer download ................ compared to a 12 inch vinyl disc that can wear & warp etc / versus the known durabilities of a CD!
.

 

vinyl is dead...digital is here to stay like it or not. The record companies will not "bring back" vinyl in a big way...that's called dreaming.

 

that's saved for Mono Vinyl!

 

The issue is that digital album sales are on a steep decline. The near future seems to be that of digital singles downloads combined with streaming. My point reiterated in this thread is not that vinyl is going to return as if nothing had happened. It was posed as a question whether vinyl might be one part of a marketing strategy to maintain ALBUM sales since it has two advantages:large artwork and no streaming. No, vinyl is Not dead; it is simply a small but widely known part of music album sales. Again this is Not an issue of a format war. LPs, CDs and digital album downloads are ALL albums. They are losing out to streaming and singles. Since I have yet to hear a single alternative to using vinyl as a marketing approach, I have to assume that people see no counter to trends and that digital albums too will rapidly shrink to a small part of music sales. I will have to have a beer with Smiths22 as we raise our glasses to the dear beloved album (your choice of format).

 

Just noticed this in a mag today . . .

http://ortofon.com/hifi/products/cartridges/2m-series/2m-mono-se

 

hey, i can already get ANY new release i want on vinyl. to me, vinyl IS back in a "big way" from 10-15 years ago, when only a handful of titles were pressed to vinyl.

 

And which are the artists do you like? cause you already stated a certain dislike for "dinosaurs bands" like Floyd or U2..

 

Only in your deepest wet dreams.

Amen.

 

you are misquoting me. i never said i didn't like them (although i don't like u2), i was just making that point that most"newer" artists have their albums pressed to vinyl. it's pretty amazing actually. i'm constantly astounded when i'm at the record store at the depth of the selection.

 

The mass market isn't there for vinyl and never will be again, unless you count the remaindered copies of Justin Timberlake's latest in Marshalls as an harbinger of a format revival.

However, it appears there's enough interest to produce select new releases and catalog items in vinyl for the foreseeable future, which is more than I would have ever predicted ten or twenty years ago.

 

well you called them dinosaurs.... i dont think that is a flattering word, it expresses age and a certain dislike as you have stated (i don't like U2), anyways which are your musical tastes? if i may know of course.

 

Charging $60 for double LP re-issues will kill the revival dead in no time. Overall vinyl will remain a fringe product, the % is too small, the large players with capital don't want to risk the investment in building new modern plants while large audio manufacturers are simply trying to survive in a market where everything is going digital/smaller/more convenient and the general public doesn't seem to care one iota about sound quality.

 

as far as dinosaurs go, i like the usual. neil young, pink floyd, stooges, stones, beatles, petty. new music i've bought this year is pretty pedestrian, and includes ty segall, thee oh sees, beck, parquet courts, courtney barnett, jack white, woods, the orwells, shabazz palaces, etc. my musical tastes are all over the place, but i tend to stay away from classical and jazz.

 

60 bucks for double lp re issues? who/what/where?

 

There are already versions of Marilyn Manson and Slipknot which came on colored vinyl with a t shirt also

 

OK i see you like some dinosaurs too... good.

Answering your question:

Because i don't know any of the new artists like the ones you mentioned for example, i mean i don't even know them (call me a dinosaur if you like); ty segall, thee oh sees, beck, parquet courts, courtney barnett, jack white, woods, the orwells, shabazz palaces, etc.

So you buy them all in vinyl format? Good.

Wait i like Taylor Swift (mainly because of her beauty second because of her music), she's more or less a new artist but that's all for me, i found the courteeners interesting too but i'm pretty much done with new artists at my age. When i was 20 i was absorbing all, 20 years later i only stick with the classics (Smiths, Beatles, Floyd, U2, Clash, Queen, etc).

 

I have observed that when and artist appears on one of the nightly talk shows that they introduce the act by showing the record they are currently promoting
and not the CD as formats go. I also see records being played in a lot of current movies or television when and actor is playing music in a scene.
I think this may have started with the show House or that was when I first noticed it.

 

to name a few recent ones

Soundgarden
Neil Young - any of his new releases
Clapton - 2014 reissues
PF "Division Bell" cracks the $50 barrier with taxes
KISS - pricey single LP reissues >$30 in most markets
Led Zep - close to $50 for the doubles
lots of MOV reissues are priced high, they are imports though for us

 

Mmmmmm interesting that would be a pretty clear sign that the music industry is trying to reinstate the vinyl format as the main one (cant be copied)... Do you have videos?

 

I think people are reading way too much into this. The 12" record cover would be a better prop to hold up during an appearance than a 5.25 jewel box equivalent.

IIRC, 12x12 slicks were still produced for music store placement long after CD had supplanted vinyl as the primary commercial format.

 

yes i think you are right, this happened in 2009:



Fiu!

 

I believe my local indie record store owner is allowed to return new vinyl to his distributor, he told me the other day that he had returned some new titles that didn't sell. Maybe I misunderstood him.

 

Your reservation is well taken; however the question is whether this form of advertising is becoming more prevalent than 5 or 10 years ago. A lot of times things happen by osmosis as it were rather than by some master plan. If this form of advertising the album with the vinyl copy is becoming more habitual in the post 2010 world, then that would have at least some significance.