VINYL

It was 1948. For the first time someone went home to put his new vinyl in the record player. 

Listening to music was just the end of a longer list of actions until fifteen years ago. Going to the record store, buying the album, going back home, opening that annoying plastic wrap, putting the record in the player, and there it was finally: music. 

Today all this sounds terribly '90s, as we can buy and listen to music with less than three clicks. The computerizing technology has not spared music's market. But more and more people are going back to that long process of buying and listening. Vinyl is the reason why. 

Since 1948, it has never disappeared. And apparently it is coming back to fashion.

A NEW RISING

NOVEMBER 2014 BREAKS THE RECORD

Annual vinyl sales reached 1m of units in the UK last November. 

It was the highest figure since 1996, according to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). The sales record coincided with the release of Pink Floyd's new album, The Endless River. 

Breaking this record was so astonishing that Official Charts decided to lunch a weekly Vinyl Chart, both for albums and singles. 

Martin Talbot, CEO at Official Charts Company, said: "In scoring the biggest opening week for a vinyl album this millennium, Pink Floyd's The Endless River illustrates the British public's renewed love for this format, which is on course to become a £20million business this year – an incredible turnaround from barely £3m just five years ago."

THE INDEPENDENT LABEL MARKET & THE RECORD STORE DAY

Last November was not only a fleeting moment of excitement. Recently, two music events proved that vinyl is attracting more and more public and media attention. 

The Independent Label Market is a fair where over 180 independent record labels meet to sell their products. Among CDs, t-shirts and posters, a special place is reserved to vinyl. 

The market was launched in London in May 2011 and is now travelling around the world. In four years, it took place in cities like New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Berlin, Glasgow and Edinburgh. 

Katie Riding, co-founder of the Independent Label Market, says about last date at Old Spitafields Market in London: "It has been really, really good - better than I expected to be honest. This is the first time we've done three markets in one year at Spitafields. It's a new spring edition for the market and... it was brilliant, I couldn't be happier!"

The Record Store Day, on the other hand, wants to celebrate the culture of independently owned record stores. It falls on the third Saturday of April and involves exclusive album releases, DJ sets and bands performing inside record stores. 

Founded in 2007 by a group of store owners in the USA, the RSD arrived abroad soon after and is now becoming worldwide. 

Dave Grohl, Foo Fighters singer and founder, was the ambassador of 2015 RSD. As many other musicians and music aficionados, he chose also an anti-vinyl platform to celebrate the culture of handcrafted music and sales. On 18th of April, posts about the RSD spread on Twitter and other Social Networks.

2015 RSD was observed also in the UK, with great results. Vinyl sales registered an increase of 133% on the previous week, led by a reissue of The Stone Roses' debut album. 

UK figures are in keeping with the US, where Nielsen Entertainment called last RSD "the most successful Record Store Day ever for vinyl".

NUMBERS & REPORTS

The secret tendency of looking at vinyl as the last hipster trend starts collapsing when watching numbers. 

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) just confirmed that the global market of vinyl is steadily increasing, and it's worth US$346.8 million.

In the UK - the BPI reports - vinyl sales were totaled 1.3 million of units last year, up from 780,674 in 2013. And the trend seems encouraging also for the future.

As for the content, the core of vinyl demands is referred to classic rock music, says BPI. Iconic heritage acts, including Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Oasis, usually dominate the lists of vinyl best sellers. 

The US music magazine and institution Billboard published a chart with vinyl sales from 2010 to 2015. There's a substantial variety: albums move in time from Beatles to Mumford & Sons and in genres from Jazz to Garage Rock.

Sales record, events and reports: all seems talking about a vinyl coming back. 

Is that true?

VINYL VS. SPOTIFY

SPOTIFY: MATERIAL COMES WITH DRAWBACKS

When looking at numbers of music industry in general, vinyl is just a tiny black spot in an immense ocean. 

It accounts only for 2% of the global music market, which is becoming more digital day after day. If reports about vinyl talk often of a "revival", the main word is "explosion" when describing streaming music. 

Spotify, for example, has reached 60 millions of active users before 2015, with 15 million of subscribers - paying so for the service.

These are outstanding figures, considering that Spotify was launched at the end of 2008 in Sweden and needed a while before working for free all over the world. 

In general, 14.8 billion audio streams - which means 560 for every household - were consumed only in the UK during 2014, the BPI reports. And new streaming services are expected to further boost the demand. 

Murillo Sguillaro is producer and sound engineer at MUCA - The Secret Warehouse of Sound. He says: "I think that if you are a mid-independent artist, vinyl can be a very important source of income. If you play live, you have your vinyls and sell your t-shirts, you can make some extra income in order to finance the band and keep going. 

"But, you know, vinyl is very expensive. You have the artwork, the vinyl itself, you have to print everything: it can take up to five months to literally make everything. You have to plan it very well - in time and money. 

"I spoke to a guy from a major label: he told me that vinyl is never gonna be back as people say. It's maybe 1% of increase of the sales... it's nothing compared to the bigger picture. Vinyl is definitely a fashion, but it's a niche fashion."

VINYL: MATERIAL COMES WITH QUALITY

But Sguillaro ads: "Some bands want to offer the whole experience, so recording analogue, having the vinyl and listening, not just having to skip on Spotify. The digital world brought something that you cannot touch, you cannot feel." 

David Grohl of Foo Fighters attributes the interest in vinyl to a tech fatigue as well. "Now you can have 10,000 songs on your watch, and download them when you're walking down the street from a satellite, or whatever. 

"So that convenience, as amazing and almighty as it is, is overshadowed by the emotional experience of sitting down and opening up a record from your childhood, smelling it, thinking of your childhood bedroom, or staring at John Lennon's face as you listen to Imagine." 

Actually, for all music lovers - or looking as if - vinyl means benefits and high-quality in sounds, artwork and listening. This material brings, in brief, a high-quality music experience. 

Sellers - come straight from the '70s to the Independent Label Market - explain why vinyl is better.

WHO WINS, IN THE END?

Well, buyers and consumers never win anything. 

But, maybe, music lovers do.