When did vinyl become mainstream again?

When a talk show host holds up an album cover while introducing the musical guest, it's always an LP cover now, never a CD jewelbox anymore.

Letterman was on long enough to go from holding up the LP to the CD, and back to the LP.

 

Mainstream for me. I think that Chad Kassem has really helped the resurgence of records. Vinyl is still flooring to me.

 

Books are mainstream, right? Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and all that? You'd be shocked how much print book sales have in common with vinyl record sales, I think. Are books no longer "mainstream?"

 

I don't agree with your graph. In the store where I shop, wood sells way more than vinyl. Aluminum comes in second, then vinyl, then glass.
Maybe it's a regional thing.
Oh, your graph is from 2012. Nevermind.

 

When I was in the vinyl biz in NYC we had to send proofs over to Letterman a few times for artists appearing on his show.

 

but you forget that album sales across the board are in the toilet, right? With more and more people adapting streaming and abandoning physical music, any small victory is good, right? Vinyl is keeping many mom and pop record shops alive who would've otherwise been forced to shut down because of all the illegal downloading, streaming and everything else that is taking money out of their pockets. Only Adele's 25 sold more than 2 million copies in the US last year from hard sales (cd, digital and vinyl), sales have gotten so bad that Billboard even started factoring in streams to the album charts because sales numbers are so low that the #200 album could dip below 1000 copies on a given week on pure sales.... 15 years ago, the #200 album would've still sold 8-10k on an average week.

 

It's not mainstream. It's a phenomenon that became a fixture, I would say, over the last 3-5 years. 5 years ago, my local record store, the only one we had, was in a teeny tiny space at the back of a proper music/cd/dvd store. Only a handful of us long-time collector goons frequented the place and we pretty much treated it as our personal clubhouse.

Now the same store has moved to a new location, tripled in size and sports all kinds of turntables and paraphernalia and is very often chock full of hipster kids rummaging around the bins. It's a phenomenon that seems to have grown fairly organically - the demand was there before the record companies were ready to meet it, like it caught them by surprise to some extent. Now of course, they seem hell bent on killing the golden goose with their ridiculous prices and reissue policies, but it's kind of cool that this grew out of some unanticipated demand for a physical (and not terribly practical) artifact from the past.

 

Perfectly stated!

Ed

 

Yes. He posted a stock picture of a hipster.

Because, hipsters.

 

2008.

 

Vinyl never really went away. All during the 90's / 2000's, there were vinyl only record shows all over the world. Once the internet hit in a big way, people were buying and selling tons of vinyl on ebay and privately owned sites. Even the record companies during the CD boom times were putting out limited edition vinyl of artists like Dylan, Rush, Pearl Jam, etc. I myself have made a decent living buying and selling vinyl (with no other job) since 2002. It's not going away, ever. That said, it'll never be like the 70's when millions of copies of "Rumours" were selling like hotcakes -- it's a different world now. But it ain't going away -- people have been listening to 78's since the early part of the 20th century, LP's and 45's since 1949 or so, and they continue to do so. Whether or not it's mainstream is open for debate -- but when I constantly see parents coming in to my store with their kids who just got their first record player and are all excited to buy a record -- it's pretty close to mainstream.

 

It's not mainstream. It's not even a mass market item anymore.

Entire press runs selling out at midnight presales, press runs under 2,000, and unabated gouging will stop it from becoming mainstream.

 

Ok maybe using "mainstream" was for a lack of better words coming into my mind at almost 12:00am... but you guys have to agree that compared to how it was around 10-15 years ago, vinyl is now more common than it was back then. I saw someone calle this a "fad" which is a better choice of wording. When I go to Amoeba Music, I'm seeing people around my age collecting vinyl. Sure they don't know any better because they probably picked up some cheap Crosley Crusiers just to play (and damage) their records off the bat. I've seen a lot of people that I know from high school get Crosleys for Christmas or they got a Crosley for themselves during the holiday season. I have around 4 friends that collect vinyl and I got one of them into it about two months ago (luckily, I was in time to tell him to avoid Crosleys).

But vinyl is in a better place now. Urban Outfitters and Barnes and Noble sell vinyl. Maybe other stores like H&M will, or already have begun to sell vinyl too. The vinyl section at Barnes and Noble is growing and more reissues are being issued out every week it seems. It's now pretty common to be able to pick up a CD, vinyl and digital download version of any new album. And with CD's, they are more for everyday use than vinyl albums. You can put it in your PC, your new car, your portable CD player (if you still rock one) and hear your music through there. With vinyl, you're gonna have to be at home to listen to your music through your player. CD's are getting a little less popular as the sections for CD's shrink in some stores like Best Buy and Target. Some singles aren't even issued out in CD format anymore.

 

It gives her the tingles

 

When it became a lifestyle accessory for high school and college kids, it became mainstream. Mainstream is not the same thing as ubiquitous. It's not a cell phone, but it's not the purveyance of hygiene challenged middle age men and quirky hipsters anymore, either.

 

You forgot to mention the fact that it's physical media.

 

Are you from the '90s?

 

Then how come another BEATLES thread isn't treated with the same distain?

 

Different person. The person with the glasses appeared on page one.

 

It is among some members.

 

Can we stop using the word, "hipster", please. I'm willing to bet that most who are using it have no idea what it means. Either way, it's overused and cliche. Find something else. Thanks.

Ed

 

Oh, they are. It's just that there are so many, there's no way to keep up with them all.

Ed

 

LPs are certainly more common than 10 years ago, that's for sure.

 

But see how its grown over the years since the mid 90's

 

You know, I'm a big vinyl guy but I fall into this camp. I'll take a $10 CD over a $25 vinyl album every time. I don't buy a lot of new stuff on vinyl but more than make up for it in used purchases.