Old school is cool: Vinyl records

Vinyl records remain a niche product, but the once-dead noble, black disc has enjoyed renewed popularity in recent years. Wolfgang Rieple stated back in 1913 with his so-called "Rieplischen law" that media are hardly displaced; new media is merely complementary and expanding. So even record lovers were not entirely sidelined. The NZZ notes that record sales have been steadily rising for a few years while it is estimated that vinyl sales almost doubled between 2012 and 2015. To the boom and its effects:

Hardware versus streaming

Like in the book market, a dual system is emerging in the music business. That means, although much of the music is streamed or digitally purchased through streaming services, analogue recordings still remain popular. Many artists let their music appear as luxury 180-gram pressings and the editions are often limited. This makes vinyl records a scarce cultural asset with collector's value. Although the thickness of the disc does not affect the sound quality, these thick records have great sound indeed. According to the NZZ, you can always listen to famous DJs, who have a curated record collection created by a vinyl expert at the request of an art collector, for a fee.

Besides all the stimulating effects on the ears and the eyes, the new record hype has a dark side. For example, Aram Lintzel of the NZZ wrote that a so-called "vinyl traffic jam" has been created, which has led to production bottlenecks in the few remaining record presses. This has to do with the fact that especially the big, well-known labels re-publish the music of their archives on the big, black records and consequently small independent labels often have to wait for a considerable time. Since 2015, this issue has been debated and discussed in music circles on blogs and in print. The occasion was April 18, 2015, to be more precise the Record Store Day, which since 2007 is intended as a "holiday" to give small, independent record stores more publicity. On the occasion of the Record Store Day in 2015 numerous special editions of records of all major labels appeared, whereupon the criticism arose that the Record Store Day had degenerated into a publicity stunt of the big labels.

Collecting records - why?

The essence of collecting records is primarily owning pressed music. There may be many reasons for owning this "black gold": Because the sound from a turntable is considered more honest, because big labels have temporarily declared the record dead, or because you can make supercool selfies with the "sleeves" of the vinyl recordings, the so-called "sleeve facing". In 2014 saw a book published by the celebrated photographer Eilon Paz, a comprehensive illustrated book with over 400 pages containing collectors of all ages with their sacred record collections and numerous reasons for the collection of vinyl gold. Eilon Paz is also the founder of the popular dustandgrooves.com website, aimed at the die-hard vinyl collectors’ public.

Is your vinyl collection shelf getting too small?

The largest record collection in the world is probably owned by the Brazilian Zero Freitag. He owns some 5 million recordings stored in two warehouses of 8000 square meters. Anyone who has compiled a somewhat modest record collection at home, but has run into a lack of space, here's a tip: The "black gold" can also easily find a new home in a Self-Storage unit from placeB. In our smallest box of 1 m3, can store more than 800 records, assuming the normal-sized record sleeves ( ❯ How to rent a storage room ). Besides, the records are stored in a dry and CCTV-monitored room, ensuring safe storage for your beloved record collection.