Smokey Maverick

Everyone knows the ‘old boy’ music network is a hurtin’ nowadays – and you’d be hard pressed to find sympathy for most major labels, from music consumers and artists alike.  However, the big boy’s aren’t readily jumping on a surging wave that could help buoy some of their sinking revenue numbers.  Between 2006 and 2007, the RIAA saw an increase in vinyl revenue of 46.2%.

But enough about the big label side of the music industry fearing another fertile frontier of opportunity; we are here instead to determine which format is the best way to consume your favorite music.  Since .mp3s have clearly wrestled the crown away from CDs as today’s standard music format, we’ll pit digital .mp3s vs. vinyls.  To determine a clear cut winner, we’ll grade both formats across 5 variables:

Music as a form of Art
Obviously, this is an easy win for vinyl.  As my buddy, the HonestApe tweeted, he misses the art that used to come with music, in the form of album artwork.  Today’s digital music players make an attempt to display the album artwork, whether it be on your computer or your MP3 player, but it’s just not the same.  I’ll take a physical 12″ x 12″ physical print of my man JR Cash over a tiny 12px x 12px .gif any day, not to mention my favorite album artwork of all time would just look silly as a .gif image.
Edge: Vinyl

Utility
Small marks do go to vinyl, with the whole mixing aspect. But one cannot deny the portability of digital music – from your computer, to your iPod, to your car, to the power of creating your own music server accessible from anywhere in the world. Plus, if you really wanted to, you could mix and scratch .mp3s as well.
Edge: Digital

Novelty Factor
For musical Luddites, it gets no better than vinyl. It easily harks back to the (usually over-romanticized) past. I must admit I recall joyfully bopping around to Micheal Jackson, Manfred Mann, Billy Joel and Barrington Levy records as a child. In addition to the nostalgia of vinyls, hipsters dig them because of their cultural or iconic significance. Gotta face it: digital music is just not as charming.
Edge: Vinyl

Musical Cohesiveness
Due to vinyl’s physical makeup, it conduces the listener to listen to the album as an album, which is lost to us Gen Y’ers. Because music fans have shifted their consumption of music from CDs to digital mp3s (which are mixed and matched galore on iPods), artists don’t have to fuss about how to order the songs on an album. Because of this very reason, Jay Z refused to sell his LP American Gangster on iTunes, because “As movies are not sold scene by scene, this collection will not be sold as individual singles.” In addition to forcing artists to create the flow of an album, and forcing fans to listing to the songs sequentially, vinyl also forces the concept of a divison of sides, with songs being placed on the “A” side and the “B” side.
Edge: Vinyl

Sound Quality
I get it. I get the whole analog sound is a continuous sound wave while digital music is a translation of that sound wave in a series of horizontal and vertical lines (or more accurately, 1’s and 0’s). But anyone who claims there is a discernible difference in the analog sound, in the “warmth” of the pure, true sound wave, have hit the pretentious Kool Aid a bit hard. Human ears are not so evolved and sensitive that we can identify any difference. In addition, the digital format gets the nudge for longevity – compare a 15 year old vinyl with it’s (responsibly backed up) digital counterpart – and the white noise/dirt/dust on the vinyl would have increased, and thus decreased its sound quality.
Edge: Digital

With a score of Vinyl 3, Digital 2, it appears as though I’ll have to begrudgingly award vinyls with the Number One Best Time Musical Sound award. I’ll admit, vinyls have proven to be the more “pure” way to consume your music, but the format that you use will hinge on what’s important to you: enjoying your music in the purest fashion, or on the go with the maximum amount of ease and portability. I’ll continue to rock out with the latter – with a medium grande skim-low-fat cream double-shot mocha, and that’s to go, please.

Tags:   LPs · Smell the Glove · Spinal Tap Easter Egg · vinyl vs. digital music1 Comment