Hotwax Residue: Vinyl Finds a Place in the Hearts of the Young

For my ethnography, I explored vinyl culture. This work is slightly atypical from most ethnographic work in that the central focus of my study, the culture surrounding the vinyl record format, transcends particular genres of music or particular locales. This study is meant to focus on how a “method” of listening to music creates a community rather than how a certain “scene” or “sound” shapes a community. In the late 1980s, the Compact Disc became the prevalent format for listening to and consuming music, at which time vinyl records fell out of mainstream listening culture leaving in its place the more portable, durable, and reliably clean-sounding CDs. Now CDs are on their way out to make way for digital download, but vinyl is still lingering in the hearts of many music fans (Pfeiffer 2007). Today, this shift in format means that anyone younger than roughly thirty years of age never knew vinyl records to be the industry standard for listening to music. From the 1980s up through the present, vinyl records are most importantly associated with hip-hop and DJing culture, where they are used as a palate from which to piece together new (and very influential music). Instead of focusing on the “creative” aspect of vinyl culture, I chose to examine the “listening” aspect of vinyl culture—the continuation of vinyl as a listening format into the age of digital music.

My research methods included interviewing five music-savvy youths ranging in age from late teens to early thirties, a young musician who just released a 45, and a seasoned record store employee, as well as visiting several record stores, independent, commercial, and virtual. My varied contacts, contributors, and locales were drawn from Tampa, FL, my hometown, and Providence, RI, my current location of residence, and the worldwide web, the occupant of a solid majority of my time. The purpose of all of this was to discover how vinyl factors into people’s consumption of music, how it is marketed and presented in stores, and how it is brought into production by musicians.

First off, I feel that it is useful to understand how records are made achieve an analog, non-digital sound. This distinction will be helpful to relate to how some of my interviewees describe listening to records. Here is a clip from Discovery Channel’s “How It’s Made” which surfaced on Youtube.com and details the process of making a record:

And here’s a homemade video on how the needle of a record player “reads” the actual record:

These days, the records that can be found in record stores are broken up into two different varieties, 33s and 45s. 33s, or 12-inch LPs, are long playing discs that usually contain 25 minutes of music on each side, spin on the turntable at 33 rotations per minute, and typically contain an entire album. 45s, or 7-inch records, are short discs with usually one or two songs on each side, spin at 45 rotations per minute, and typically contain a track that an artist considers a “single”

Vinyl culture is still very alive today. Although vinyl is not as ubiquitous as CDs or digital downloads, it still has an important place in the music industry and with music fans. Many bands and record labels are making sure to have releases come out on vinyl as well as CD and digital download. Some of the larger “indie” labels such as Sub-Pop (home to The Shins, Iron & Wine, and The Postal Service), Matador (home to Cat Power, Belle & Sebastian, and Spoon), Nonesuch (home to Wilco and The Black Keys), and XL Recordings (Home to Devendra Banhart, Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, and The White Stripes) all feature LP versions of many of there releases if not on their homepage, in there online store. Smaller “indie” labels such as Fat Possum and Alive Naturalsound Records make an even bigger deal about their vinyl releases. Alive often features their new releases in a vinyl format with an odd colored wax or a heavier pressing (such as 180g which means the record is more durable and will last longer).



Images of special "limited" colored pressing of Alive's band Brimstone Howl.


This can well be seen at many commercial record stores. My visit to Newbury Comics at the Providence Place Mall revealed that even a commercial chain still reserves a small corner of their store for vinyl records. Most of the records were of new bands (with a large assortment of White Stripes vinyls) as well as some reissues of classic albums ranging from The Beatles to T. Rex. The selection was small but vinyl was present at even at a commercial outlet in a mall.

Independent record stores are a different story. The independent stores I’ve visited such as Round Again Records and Tom’s Tracks in Providence, as well as Vinyl Fever in Tampa provide a much larger selection with extensive inventories of used vinyl as well as crisp and neatly wrapped new-releases from all sorts of bands, as well as large selections of 45s. I found vinyl was featured much more prominently at independent stores who maybe couldn’t compete with the prices of chain-stores like Newbury or FYE, especially in a market where in the past few years, CD sales have dropped due to digital downloads (legal and illegal).


A view into Tampa's Vinyl Fever!

None of these stores could compare to the vast selection of used, new, and rare/vintage vinyl available on auction sites like ebay or multi-seller record store musicstack.com.

Despite vinyl's scattered representation in stores, the people I interviewed about vinyl had some similar feelings towards the format. In general, everyone that I talked to seemed to link to something that contributes to the authenticity of music (in-depth background on my interviewees can be found in my previous posts). Interviewees often mentioned playing vinyl sounding more “real” and creating a “physical connection” with the music. Tampa-based WMNF DJ Arielle commented on a visceral reaction to the vinyl sound, “I can’t quite describe it, but the sound, it just gets to you in your gut.” Matt from Tampa relates going to a record store and physically picking out records brings him closer to fans of a similar intensity and dedication, creating a physical connection not just between the band and the listener, but between multiple listeners. Doug, a music fan who doesn’t own a record player, described vinyl as “so much more tangible. You’re holding a record. You’re putting it on this thing that you sort of understand,” and also associated vinyl with a “cultural belief” that “(listening to) vinyl means that you have more discerning musical tastes.”

The heightened “discerning musical tastes” could be linked to the fact that vinyl is expensive, and people choose to buy music on vinyl that they feel proud to own. Matt, a late 20s/early 30s vinyl fan from Tampa admitted priding himself on the physical presence of his vinyl collection, which although is not comprehensive like his digital music collection, it represents the music which he likes enough to buy on vinyl. Matt also mentions how on his high-end stereo dedicated to playing vinyls, one can truly hear the superior sound quality of vinyl when compared to a digital track. Matt from Providence (from my first set of interviews) comments on the “reality” and quality of the sound of a record in that “it’s a little more like you’re there,” which is similar to that visceral reaction described by Arielle earlier. The sound of the “music itself” is not concentrated on notes and rhythms, but rather the warmth and quality of the recording, a conception which broadens the scope of McClary’s definition (McClary 1994).

Another interesting aspect of vinyl records is their association to tradition. Several of my interviewees discussed the process of digital download and how it may not necessarily convey the tradition and musical history of listening to music. Matt from Tampa describes the vinyl ritual: “ I mean, it’s more work, it’s really going out of your way to appreciate music on vinyl—it’s a whole process. It doesn’t just flow into your earbuds from something that you can fit in your pocket. The thing doesn’t tell you the track names on the screen and you’ve got to go flip it yourself, but it’s worth it, you know.” Carson Cox elaborates on this idea from the musician’s perspective. His band the Dry County just released a limited run 45—their first official release—on Kiss of Death Records, and Carson mentions the impetus behind going with a 45 was to follow in the footsteps of DIY punk bands whom he considers influences like Black Flag and The Minutemen.


Cover art for the Dry County 45.

Gabe from Tampa record store, Vinyl Fever, inverts vinyl’s association with tradition by saying that records may be non-tradition for youth who have never encountered the format before.

Associations with warmth and presence to vinyl sound, the physical attraction of physically setting up the record to play, and a vinyl tradition historicized through the long history of vinyl production and culture, seem to make vinyl out to be the format which best showcases the sound and history behind a piece of music (Hayes 2006). These associations along with the physicality of playing and owning a record seem to generate a very real, deliberate, and authentic musical environment for many music fans, even if they may not have a record collection. This heightened level of involvement when listening to music is what brings vinyl fans together, even if it's just on the consumerist level to purchase the records, and this status and tradition of involvement will perhaps be what keeps people interested in vinyl even once mainstream format shifts from CD to digital download. Most of my interviewees discussed digital downloading and how that has become an important source of music for them, and some, and Gabe and Carson both discussed how vinyl can supplement the seemingly “invisible” format of digital downloads. Gabe even mentioned many record labels including coupons or CD versions of albums with vinyl releases as an incentive to purchase vinyl yet also to retain the practicality of modernity.

I’ve found that many music fans are beginning to appreciate more and more the physical manifestation which vinyl creates. With music that is truly important to someone, that physical connection can be essential. While a vinyl collection may not be as practical as a collection of mp3s, the format still has its distinctive edge of “authenticity” whereas CDs don’t have much more to offer than an mp3. With a fledging record collection of my own, I can understand the enjoyment which can be derived from physically playing a record, but admit to not having the time or money for any sort of vinyl collection to be comprehensive—I’ll never become musically independent from my iTunes library. As digital download sales continue to rise, perhaps owning a mass quantity of CDs will be less important to music fans and consumers, rather, they will cultivate a selective batch of vinyl records to commemorate their favorite tunes(Lin 2005).

Works Cited and Consulted:

Hayes, David. 2006 "'Take Those Old Records Off the Shelf': Youth and Music Consumption in the Postmodern Ave." In Popular Music and Society Vol. 29, No.1, pp. 51-68

McClary, Susan. 1994. "Same As It Ever Was: Youth Culture and Music." In Microphone Fiends: Youth Music and Youth Culture, eds. Andrew Ross and Tricia Rose. New York: Routledge.

Lin, Albert. 2005. "Understanding the Market for Digital Music."

Pfeiffer, Andreas. 2007. "Why the Audio CD Is Dying... And What Will Replace It."

Marshall, Wayne. 2006. "What Is Stolen? What Is Lost? Sharing Information in an Age of Litigation."

Peitz & Waelbroeck. 2005. "An Economist's Guide to Digital Music."

Milano, Brett. Vinyl Junkies: Adventures in Record Collecting. St. Martin's Griffin (2003)