The feeling of physically placing a record on the player, flipping the cover back and forth to check out the songs that are about to be played, that’s the personal experience vinyl gives to record lovers and those are the feelings that they cherish still today.

Record store employee Will Hackney, of Schoolkids Records located on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, disagrees with the statement by Forbes. He’s been buying vinyl for the past 15 years and hasn’t seen a decrease in the want of vinyl ever since he can remember. To Will, records provide a personal experience because vinyl can never “just be background music.”

Owsinski also stated that “Albums are expensive and time consuming to make.” Daniel Matti, manager of Schoolkids Records in Durham, feels that
they aren’t that expensive and the process of making a record is what makes them special. I had the opportunity to ask Matti why he felt vinyl provided fans with better quality than media-given music and he said that “records have posters and stickers inside that give the artist’s fans who are buying the record more than just the music.” Those kind of extra gifts inside the records make the fans feel even more appreciated by their favorite artists. Vinyl is also used as art because of the wax designs on their covers and have provided many vinyl enthusiasts with visual bliss.
Vinyl is expensive because it is a part of a vintage age where everything around the music is appreciated and not just the song. The singer, the band, the logo and the design all combine into one square that the customer invests in because of  love for the band. Artists receive more revenue from customers going out and purchasing a record or a CD rather than a fan just checking out their music on YouTube or Spotify. In the end, whether vinyl lives on or not from now depends on the consumer, so if you don’t want it to die, start visiting your local record stores and enjoy the art of vinyl.

“Music being listened to over media is more distracting because media is known to make the mind race while vinyl is singularly focused on the music
being played,” said Hackney.

Ellie Yinger is a high school intern at WCHL/Chapelboro

 

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