Vinyl: Is it really worth a spin?
I’m standing on Church Street, a glimpse of post-industrial Lancashire, a far cry from Dickensian Britain, though equally as dreary — and the only solace is Action Records, a music shop which has stood the test of time in this part of Preston. It is untouched and still as relevant as ever, finds Jacob Waite.
Vinyl sales have been growing faster than any other music format in 2016, despite only accounting for 2% of official chart sales, according to the BBC. However, its popularity can be measured by the introduction of a chart devoted primarily to vinyl.
This makes perfect sense as Action Records is busy and I am asked to leave within the five minutes of arranging a prior interview, though I am assured it is the ‘busy lunchtime rush’ at fault and not my personal hygiene.
Hours pass and I return to the familiar face of Gordon Gibson, who has founded Action Records for over 35 years. He believes record companies are reissuing and manufacturing vinyl ‘as a cash thing now’.
“They’re startin’ to bring out their old vinyl and the record companies keep pressing them out. We see a lot of reissues.”
After being made redundant several times, Gordon began selling his own collection of records in Blackpool during the late 1970s before moving to Preston in the 1980s and eventually opening Action Records.
“Vinyl is nice, there is no doubt, and it’s good that young people are getting into vinyl who wouldn’t usually buy CDs… I’m happy with both to be honest but a lot of people like picking the vinyl out.”
As well as a shop, Action Records is also an independent record label, and has released records by bands such as Tompaulin, The Boo Radleys, Dandelion Adventure, Genocides, Big Red Bus, Fi-Lo Radio, Monkey Steals The Drum, Ricky Spontane — to name but a few. Perhaps most notably, The Fall and Mark E Smith.
The shop has also been home to a string of popular live performances from bands such as Fi-Lo Radio, Muse, Bastille, You Me At Six and Dirty Pretty Things.
However, despite the surge in popularity of vinyl, Gordon still believes there is still a devoted market for CDs.
“Oh, yeah, CDs are still popular…people still talk like they have gone away but it’s not, it’s still a big format, CD. Although, where vinyl has banded back in with — CDs have remained.”
Jonathan Brodsky, an avid record collector, states he enjoys listening to vinyl because of the ‘heightened sense of engagement’ involved.
“Vinyl keeps you on your toes more than [other formats] because of the need to switch sides, so you’re generally more considerate of what point you’re at in the record; this creates a different level of engagement than you get with a CD that plays through without interruption.”
In addition to collecting records, Jonathan is the founder of a popular online record collectors’ circle, which offers a friendlier and more inclusive spin on the concept of a Facebook music-posting photo group.
The group was founded on January 5th, 2015 with the aim of making good friends with a mutual appreciation for interesting music. Regular members of the group often post photos of records they are listening to and invite intelligent discussion or debate involving LPs or music on other platforms.
“Vinyl is exceptionally popular because it’s emblematic of the first time that music-as-commerce truly caught on in a grand sense. It has a very attractive aesthetic quality owing to the large scale artwork and it’s endlessly fascinating to many because it is arguably the most ‘physical’ of physical music formats; even though lasers read very physical CDs and tape heads play back very physical tape, there is something exceptionally primal about a needle tearing through a record.”
in 2016, Tesco announced it would join high-street shops and retailers such HMV and Urban Outfitters — beginning to sell LPs for the first time in its 97 year history.
The supermarket giant claims vinyl makes a ‘trendy Christmas gifting option’, embracing revival that has seen sales of LPs rise more than 800% in six years, according to the Guardian.
“It’s also accrued a certain ‘coolness’ owing to its depiction in popular culture, especially with regard to people that are portrayed as ‘in-the-know’ being loyalists to the format, sometimes espousing an arrogance that eschews all other formats” states Jonathan.
The Guardian states the vinyl album market was worth nearly £26m in 2014 — soaring from little more than £3m in 2009 — as veteran music fans rebuilt lost or scratched collections, hipsters and pre-pubescent teenagers began buying increasing special releases by bands such as One Direction.
Gordon believes the meteoric rise of vinyl is down to the record companies repressing material because ‘they don’t really make much on downloads.’
“Of course there is more competition! For all major name stuff on vinyl, it’ll be just like it used to be where the big stores will stock the big high-end things.”
“Record companies are manufacturing vinyl as a cash thing now, so obviously, they are looking now for places to sell it — where there is a niche market for it.”
The average price of an LP in 2016 can range from £15 to £25 or above, whereas downloads are often priced at £10 or below, depending on their popularity.
“You have to remember for a long time none of this stuff was being pressed so you couldn’t buy it, it just didn’t exist, it wasn’t a case of: “Oh, I’ll just go and buy this album on vinyl instead of CD” there was a point where there was no option, it was CD only… and now they have started to come back with pressing vinyl again now,” says Gordon.
I am a non-for-profit freelance writer and journalist who enjoys writing words about the subcultures surrounding retro platforms. If you enjoyed this article, please leave a comment, share on social media, or on Medium — where you can also follow me, or my instagram account @waiteski, figuratively, of course.
