THE WONDERWHY: VINYL REVIVAL

It all begins when you hold it in your hands: something tangible, a physical manifestation of that record you love with an admiration that supersedes all others. The artwork is there. The artwork you absentmindedly sketch in the back of your notebooks; on the back of your hand. It’s all there, free from the cold plastic division that’s part of a CD format, free of the meaningless cluster of pixels on your phone. It carries a subtle magnificence that makes you think it’s worthy of being displayed on your bedroom wall, but what you want to see is how this thin plastic disk can possibly contain the music so ingrained in your memory. The Wonderwhy is this: What has reignited our romance with vinyl? Why, after 66 years of its first distribution to music lovers around the world, have we turned our backs on the advancement of the cassette, the CD and the digital format, to return to our first love, the record?

The evidence of this affair is strewn in every city, every town. Urban Outfitters, who don’t typically deal with music, are now well-established in their selling of vinyl copies and record players. God knows we’ve seen enough excitable posts on social media to prove it. The appeal is widespread. In every music shop, they’re becoming a staple item.

The older generation of music lovers who grew up with the presence of records as we have with the digital format and CDs, are bemused by our naïveté and blissful ignorance of how they work. Most are perplexed: here we are, the modern generation, with volumes of crystal clear music at our fingertips no matter where we are, and yet our fascination lies with the record – why is that?

I believe the psychology behind our love for vinyl is straightforward. If you take any musical phenomenon, any newfound fad, any “big thing”, it is all directly explained simply by our love for music – a love that is common to every generation, a love that never seems to lessen in its intensity. The vinyl, in my opinion, has had its resurgence because we, as connoisseurs of music, are looking for that unique, different way of listening to it and appreciating it. We are all seeking new sensations, sampling the different avenues of music that we can get our hands on, desperate for more, more, more.

The resurgence of the record shouldn’t be contemptible – it should be celebrated. The older generations complain of the current one’s estrangement to the traditions they were raised on, but when we finally do take to something, we are dismissed as almost being unworthy of it. Shouldn’t the gentle hum of the player, the satisfying thump and the crackle of a spinning record be loved in the way it deserves? We’re expanding our musical horizons, and while that is promoted and advocated, the future not only for the record – but for music itself – is looking to be as bright as ever.