For the music-streaming generation, the mention of vinyl conjures images of flannel-wearing beanie clad hipsters, adorned with horn-rimmed spectacles, living in a reclaimed warehouse somewhere on the outskirts of East London. Thursday evenings call for the second hand record player (the one that was found in that skip at 4am) to be unpacked, whilst tucking into a neat glass of homemade sloe gin – all whilst debating the best of 1940’s film noir.
The other alternative involves your granddad in a wooly jumper and slippers, dusting off his 20s swing collection.
But whilst the total number of album sales (both CD and digital) fell once again in 2014, record sales have reached a 20-year high with figures exceeding 1.29 million units.
At a glance, the new Vinyl Top 40 chart sees the likes of Arctic Monkeys’ AM sitting side-by-side with Nirvana’s Unplugged in New York and Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. It’s a musical boiling pot that spans the decades, not only making vinyl contemporary again, but opening multiple generations ears to melodic tones and high-octane drum fills that they may not have experienced the first time around.
Sure, records may still be niche in the grand scheme of things – making up 2 percent of all UK music sales – but the vinyl revival is an ever-growing phenomenon that is capturing the hearts of home-brewing hipsters and Armani-adorned businessmen alike.
From I Love You Man to High Fidelity to Garden State, we are constantly presented with film characters that are making record collecting cool. They’re funny, they’re one of the guys and they show you how to turn vinyl into a weapon, if – god forbid – we were to end up in the midst of a zombie apocolypse. They’re the kind of person you want to grab a beer with after work and ultimately the kind of person you could become with the help of a powerful record collection.
But it’s not just the guy next door who’s making vinyl cool.
Take Suits character Harvey Specter for example; a high-flying litigator with a penchant for whiskey, women, and more importantly, vinyl records. Granted he’s a fictional character, but the fact remains that the writers and producers of the hit US show – averaging 4 million viewers per episode – have created a finely tuned aesthetic, tailoring habits and honing character traits in order to produce a powerfully stylish individual with an over-sized ego to suit.
An individual whose apartment you would want to wake up in the morning after the best house party of your life (regardless of the thumping hangover).
With an office that features an entire wall devoted to his high-end LP collection, Specter owns a Pro-ject RPM 1.3 Genie turntable (mysteriously different from the VPI Aries 3 Turntable that features in the pilot episode I might add), a suitably understated record player that turns it’s back on traditional design in favour of clean lines and minimalism.
A contemporary record player that YOU could own.
Manufacturers have now created entire new record player collections that cater to all sectors of the market, bringing the average-Joe one step closer to becoming the new Sydney Fife or Harvey Specter. And it seems to be working, with John Lewis reporting a 240 per cent increase in record player sales compared to the same period in 2014.
Vinyl is no longer considered the product of a bygone era reserved for baby boomers, audiophiles and the East London elite. The joy of this phenomenon is that it draws the focus back onto the social aspects of music, whilst benefiting those who would normally be hit hard by illegal streaming and downloading.
Considering the fact we live in a music-streaming generation that relies so heavily on platforms such as Spotify and Soundcloud to channel music through socially isolating headphones, the whole concept behind the resurgence of vinyl becomes that much more intriguing.
