| Are vinyl records dead? At first glance it might appear | | | | form of physical media that had been supplanted by |
| so but this is not the whole story. While eight tracks | | | | newer, better media. This is, in fact, exactly what it |
| tapes, cassette tapes and floppy discs have come | | | | happening to CDs right now. It is so easy to just go |
| and mostly gone, vinyl seems to be hanging on. | | | | and download the songs that you want create playlists |
| Make no mistake; vinyl is by no means the seller it | | | | for them on whatever MP3 player you choose. This |
| once was. When vinyl was king, it was used to press | | | | has lead to radical changes in both the way records |
| hundreds of millions per year. Nowadays it has had a | | | | are sold and the way they are produced. |
| sort of resurgence but it is still just a fraction of the | | | | And yet, the vinyl still hangs on. In fact, there is a good |
| sales from its heyday. It took a long time for vinyl to | | | | argument that vinyl is actually more popular now than it |
| actually be supplanted. The first real challenger was | | | | ever has been. Back when vinyl was the media of |
| the eight track tape, but the unwieldy size and the | | | | choice for music, every few people ever thought |
| limited sound capacity never really made it a big | | | | about vinyl, it just was. Since it is been replaced, though, |
| contender for the crown. Cassette tapes, in fact, | | | | quite a lot of people have come to realize that they |
| made a lot more headway into getting rid of vinyl. | | | | actually quite like vinyl. The audiophiles and music lovers |
| There were smaller, easier to use and a lot harder to | | | | say that it has a richer, deeper sounds, something that |
| screw up. Combined with being easy to make your | | | | you just cannot get with music that has been reduced |
| own copies, it was no wonder that they became | | | | to just a series of ones and zeroes on a CD. It also |
| incredibly popular in the eighties. | | | | has a certain novelty value. It is now become fairly |
| What really did vinyl in was the compact disc. New CD | | | | common for bands to produce limited runs of their |
| duplication processes made it very easy to swamp | | | | music on vinyl, offered to their fans who really want |
| the market with CDs. There was very little loss of | | | | and demand a different kind of medium. |
| sound quality, the lasted more or less forever and they | | | | So the answer is no, vinyl records are not dead. |
| were a lot easier to handle than the big vinyl records. | | | | Despite advantages of cheap, easy CD duplication |
| Combined with cassette tapes, CDs started to push | | | | and direct downloads, vinyl continues to find its own |
| the vinyl record out of common use. For a while it | | | | niche, which is something we probably will not be |
| looked like vinyl would go away entirely, an antiquated | | | | saying about CDs in twenty years. |