“It was kind of magical, in a way,” my dad, an avid collector of vinyl records, tells me one day as I ask about what it was like to go into a record shop when he was younger. “It was enjoyable going to the shop and flicking through the records…And going to pick up a record that you’d heard on the radio–we didn’t have social media, so it was really nice to find a song that you’d heard, because once you’d heard it on the radio it was gone, you couldn’t record it. The size of the records and the [sleeve] artwork made it more appealing, too–I think a lot of them are still iconic. And I still like to go to record shops even today.”
For someone like my dad, who has grown up collecting vinyl since his early teens, I can understand the appeal of continuing to do so despite the alternative, more convenient options of modern streaming. But according to data analytics company Kantar, in Great Britain, “compared to the average buyer of music, buyers of vinyl records are 57% more likely to be aged under 25 (i.e. aged 15-24)”. Vinyl became outmoded around 1980-1990, during the advent of the much more compact (as the name suggests) and convenient CD. So why are people in our age range such comparatively big consumers of vinyl, despite many of us having been born after it supposedly went out of fashion? And why is it becoming popular among current artists–Lana Del Rey, Harry Styles, Gorillaz, and The Weeknd, to name a few–to market vinyl to their younger fans?
There are a few answers to this question. For those who must take their interior design inspiration from Pinterest, vinyl seems to be used as home decor more than for any other reason. According to ICM data shared with the BBC, 7% of vinyl buyers don’t even own a turntable to play it on!
And asking around the people I know, other common answers about reasons for purchasing records have included the appeal of owning a physical copy of their favourite albums, the ‘warmth’ as it’s played–that crackling sound that lo-fi music producers love to replicate in their contemporary music–and the large-scale, high-quality album art; even people who have turntables to play their records on could still use them as decor. Besides, how often have we heard the lament of “I was born in the wrong generation”, whether it’s at a throwback costume party or in the YouTube comments section of a Beatles song–maybe the appeal of records is just the same as with any ‘old’ media: it allows us to experience a time we’ve never lived in, even just for the 20-odd minutes it takes to play one side of an LP.
Whatever the reason, the fact is that vinyl’s back, and it’s here to stay–or maybe it never really went away in the first place. Either way, starting a collection now is a little more difficult than it used to be; vinyl records are far more expensive than they were last century. So how can you start a solid collection on a student budget?
Well, there’s some good news: now that vinyl is becoming more of a visible trend, it’s also becoming more and more widely available. For those on a budget, be sure to check out local charity shops and markets–Record Fairs UK offers an online calendar for all the upcoming record fairs in the UK, but it’s also easy to search around yourself and find even more that might not be listed on there. Meanwhile, for those who prefer ordering from home, there’s always eBay, or the more specialised Discogs marketplace – a site that also tells you the value of a record, so you know how much it’s worth whether you’re buying or selling.
All that’s left is to decide what should be the first item in your collection…Maybe a turntable would be a good place to start!