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| From | "Drew MacDonald" <drewmacdonald1@gmail.com> |
| Subject | Vinyl surprise |
| Date | Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:16:07 -0700 |
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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- It was a fortuitous typo for the Fred Meyer retail chain.
This spring, an employee intending to order a special CD-DVD edition
of R.E.M.'s latest release "Accelerate" inadvertently entered the "LP"
code instead. Soon boxes of the big, vinyl discs showed up at several
stores.
Some sent them back. But a handful put them on the shelves, and 20 LPs
sold the first day.
The Portland-based company, owned by The Kroger Co., realized the
error might not be so bad after all. Fred Meyer is now testing vinyl
sales at 60 of its stores in Oregon, California, Washington and
Alaska.
Other mainstream retailers are giving vinyl a spin too. Best Buy is
testing sales at some stores. And online music giant Amazon.com, which
has sold vinyl for most of the 13 years it has been in business
online, created a special vinyl-only section last fall.
The best-seller so far at Fred Meyer is The Beatles "Abbey Road"
album. But musicians from the White Stripes and the Foo Fighters to
Metallica and Pink Floyd are selling well, the company says.
"It's not just a nostalgia thing," said Melinda Merrill, spokeswoman
for Fred Meyer. "The response from customers has just been that they
like it, they feel like it has a better sound."
According to the Recording Industry Association of America,
manufacturers' shipments of LPs jumped more than 36 percent from 2006
to 2007 to more than 1.3 million. Shipments of CDs dropped more than
17 percent during the same period to 511 million, as they lost some
ground to digital formats.
The resurgence of vinyl centers on a long-standing debate over analog
versus digital sound. Digital recordings capture samples of sound and
place them very close together as a complete package that sounds
nearly identical to continuous sound many people.
Analog recordings on most LPs are continuous, which produces a truer
sound - though, paradoxically, some new LP releases are being recorded
and mixed digitally but delivered analog.
Some purists also argue that the compression required to allow
loudness in some digital formats weakens the quality as well.
But it's not just about the sound. Audiophiles say they also want the
format's overall experience - the sensory experience of putting the
needle on the record, the feeling of side A and side B and the joy of
lingering over the liner notes.
"I think music products should be more than just music," said Isaac
Hudson, a 28-year-old vinyl fan standing outside one of Portland's
larger independent music stores.
The interest seems to be catching on. Turntable sales are picking up
and the few remaining record pressers say business is booming.
But the LP isn't going to muscle out CDs or iPod soon.
Nearly 450 million CDs were sold last year, versus just under 1
million LPs, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Based on the first three
months of this year, Nielsen says vinyl album sales could reach 1.6
million in 2008.
"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, a Nashville based company that is the nation's largest
record pressing plant.
Many major artists - Elvis Costello, the Raconteurs and others - are
issuing LPs and encouraging fans to check out their albums on vinyl.
On Amazon.com, one of the best-selling LPs is Madonna's latest album,
"Hard Candy".
Some artists package vinyl and digital versions of their music
together, including offers for free digital downloads along with the
record.
"We've definitely had some talks with the major retailers about
exclusives on the manufacturing end," Millar said of United Record
Pressing, which focuses primarily on independent recordings.
An avid music fan himself, Millar says he has moved to vinyl in recent years.
"Once I got my first iPod ... I'm looking at my wall of CDs and trying
to justify it," Millar said. "The things I like - the artwork, the
liner notes, the sound quality - it dawns on me, those are things I
like better on vinyl." He welcomed back the pops and clicks, even some
of the scratches.
"I like that fact that it's imperfect in a lot of ways, live music is
imperfect too," Millar said.
Independent music stores, which have been the primary source of LPs in
recent years, say many fans never left the medium.
"People have been buying vinyl all along," said Cathy Hagen, manager
at 2nd Avenue Records in Portland. "There was a fairly good supply
from independent labels on vinyl all these years. As far as a
resurgence, the major labels are just pressing more now."
In this game, big retailers aren't necessarily competing head to head
with independent sellers' regular clientele of nostalgic baby boomers,
independent label fans and turntable DJs.
"I cannot see that Best Buy or Fred Meyer would order the same things
we would," Hagen said. "They aren't going to be ordering the reggae,
funk, punk or industrial music."
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