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Topic: The Price Of New Vinyl

9th Jan 2015, 4:32 PM
	Magic Marmalade If you're not lost... It's not an adventure! Member since Jun 2014 3747 Points Moderator	I think there may well be Amy, because my reading of the situation is this: That this whole revival in general was sparked by the economic crash/continuous-unending-recession causing people through necessity to dig great hordes of old vinyl and CDs etc. out of the loft to sell, and make ends meet... But realising, as they did so, that they could therefore buy a lot this stuff through charity shops and second hand at boot fairs/garage sales etc., paying just a pound (dollar) in many cases for whole albums, whereas this will now only buy you one single track downloaded (I've saved a fortune by doing this!), and for greater quality recordings in hard copy media. So people begin to ask themselves why pay more for less, and give my musical assets away for a song (Pun!). From this, it doesn't take a genius to think, well, what if another big crash happens, and I've already sold all my stuff in the last recession? ...buggered. But aside from the monetary aspects, there is going to be the crushing realisation that there is a genuine civil rights issue waiting to happen here, when people have sold all their own copies in favour of streaming, and the streaming company you subscribe to goes bust (mark my words, this will happen one day to some such company), you now not only do not possess the music, you don't even have access to it! Many, I'm sure (Myself included) feel very uneasy about handing over the keys to the musical kingdom to a corporation, with regards to control over when and where I listen, and to what (And to keep paying over and over again for the privilege). Not quite the liberating and empowering experience that the technology promised is it... cultural servitude for pure commercial gain. But as for the formats themselves... having reached the end of technological history so to speak (Apple have no new ideas as regards to form factor that is as big a leap from the ipod to the iPhone, or the iPhone to the ipad, because it's gone as far as it can go, now it's just improvement of product, or variations on a theme(Or crappy smart watches that nobody needs or wants)), I think people are appreciating each format as an art form in it's own right, rather than simply an advance over the old: In the same way that Watercolours never rendered the use of oils as obsolete, or acrylics replaced oils or sculpture... it's a question of taste, which now exists outside of fashion or trends set by the technological entrepreneurs of the day. So why shouldn't 78s be their own art form, appreciated for their own inherent qualities rather than simply the period of history they represent? I see people buying tapes, reel to reels, VHS, even beta max in the charity shops now, it's a matter of time before they get round to buying up the stacks of 78s just sitting there awaiting discovery. In a nut shell, I think the general underlying mood is to stick it to the man as it were by saying: "Were not playing the hip and trendy techno literati , must have-latest thing -game any more... It's all about doing you're own thing now!" The past is the future... we're just waiting for the present to catch up with that idea. Long live the Revolution! (Diatribe over... normal service shall now be resumed. )