TimmyHIn a spin – retailers go vinyl
June 23rd 2008 06:58
The Fred Meyer retail chain in the US made a fortuitous blunder recently. An employee who intended to order a CD-DVD version of R.E.M.’s most recent release “Accelerate” accidentally sent an order that boxes of the “LP” should be sent to stores across North America. Many stores sent them straight back, but the ones that left the Vinyl on the shelves sold out on their first day.
The Portland, Oregon based company has now begun testing the sale of vinyl records along the West coast of the US. Best Buy and online retailer Amazon.com are on the bandwagon with Amazon launching a vinyl-only section on its website last September.
Melinda Merrill, a spokeswoman for Fred Meyer says “It’s not just a nostalgia thing (which one might expect from the Baby Boomers) the response from customers has just been that they like it, they feel like it has a better sound.”
The Recording Industry Association of America reported that in 2007/08 sales of LP’s rose by more that 35% while at the same time CD sales dropped a staggering 17% during the same period as they struggle to compete with digital downloads.
This supposed resurgence in the sale of analogue music could be a reaction to the rise of digital media and recording. Digital recordings capture samples of sound and play them side by side. To most people, this sounds just like continuous play. But the analogue tracks that run on LP’s are continuous which produces a cleaner, truer sound.
But music purists also love the experience of LP’s, setting the needle, going over the liner notes meticulously and feeling the vinyl in their fingers. But CD’s still dominate the market, selling more than 450 worldwide for every LP that walks out of record stores.
But size doesn’t matter to us all. “I don't think vinyl is for everyone; it's for the die-hard music consumer,” said Jay Millar, director of marketing at United Record Pressing. And artists are loving the “innovation” too. Madonna’s new “Hard Candy” album has been one of the biggest online, presumably for young DJ’s hoping to smash out the odd sample. Some artists have been packaging CD’s with vinyl and even free digital downloads
“I like that fact that it's imperfect in a lot of ways, live music is imperfect too,” says Millar. Independent music stores, which have been the primary source of LPs in recent years, say many fans never left. Many people have been buying vinyl all along. There was a fairly good supply through independent music labels and the major labels are pressing more vinyl now.
In the music competition the big brands and record labels aren’t necessarily competing with the major LP consumers like the nostalgic baby boomers, independent label fans and turntable DJs.
The Portland, Oregon based company has now begun testing the sale of vinyl records along the West coast of the US. Best Buy and online retailer Amazon.com are on the bandwagon with Amazon launching a vinyl-only section on its website last September.
Melinda Merrill, a spokeswoman for Fred Meyer says “It’s not just a nostalgia thing (which one might expect from the Baby Boomers) the response from customers has just been that they like it, they feel like it has a better sound.”
The Recording Industry Association of America reported that in 2007/08 sales of LP’s rose by more that 35% while at the same time CD sales dropped a staggering 17% during the same period as they struggle to compete with digital downloads.
This supposed resurgence in the sale of analogue music could be a reaction to the rise of digital media and recording. Digital recordings capture samples of sound and play them side by side. To most people, this sounds just like continuous play. But the analogue tracks that run on LP’s are continuous which produces a cleaner, truer sound.
But music purists also love the experience of LP’s, setting the needle, going over the liner notes meticulously and feeling the vinyl in their fingers. But CD’s still dominate the market, selling more than 450 worldwide for every LP that walks out of record stores.
But size doesn’t matter to us all. “I don't think vinyl is for everyone; it's for the die-hard music consumer,” said Jay Millar, director of marketing at United Record Pressing. And artists are loving the “innovation” too. Madonna’s new “Hard Candy” album has been one of the biggest online, presumably for young DJ’s hoping to smash out the odd sample. Some artists have been packaging CD’s with vinyl and even free digital downloads
“I like that fact that it's imperfect in a lot of ways, live music is imperfect too,” says Millar. Independent music stores, which have been the primary source of LPs in recent years, say many fans never left. Many people have been buying vinyl all along. There was a fairly good supply through independent music labels and the major labels are pressing more vinyl now.
In the music competition the big brands and record labels aren’t necessarily competing with the major LP consumers like the nostalgic baby boomers, independent label fans and turntable DJs.
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