Vinyl, feel the love
Vinyl is having a revival – sales have boomed from some copies to some more copies of the old oil based discs. 6music went as far as having a vinyl only policy on new year’s day complete with pops, crackles and wonky speeds. The appeal to me is aesthetic, the blank canvas of four 12″ square spaces and two labels enabled designers to create amazing themed designs. Starting in the 70s the likes of Hipgnosis were responsible for such landmaks of popular culture as Wish You Were Here and Dirty Deeds as well as XTC’s Go2 which deconstructs album art brilliantly. Then came Barney Bubbles with his neo-vorticist graphics, Bill Smith’s pop art extravaganzas and Peter Saville’s spooky monochrome designs for Factory. Add in an insert or a gatefold sleeve and you had an artefact to keep you entertained for the length of the album. Failing that you could always try reading the label of the spinning record. Sound-wise, I’m not so convinced. There are many audiophiles who will tell you that the sound quality of a record pisses all over an mp3 and while I wouldn’t dispute that necessarily, the hassle of running a good quality deck and speakers is too much for most. Handling and looking at them though – nothing to compare it. There is a growing market for modern facscimiles of rare and striking releases; I was tickled to be confronted by a display of lurid yellow reissues of the Sex Pistols Never Mind The Bollocks at John Lewis last Christmas. Each one bearing a reassuring sticker “also contains CD version of album”, thank goodness for that, you can only push us so far.
