Nobody ever called it "vinyl" or even worse "vinyls" until recently. They were records or, if being specific, 7"s, 12"s and LPs. That's what really annoys me. That and the annual "oh look, call Granny and tell her to buff up her Jim Reeves discs, vinyl has sold more than in recent times" articles in newspapers around Record Shop Day.

 

This really hits home with me. My Gran really did have Jim Reeves albums in her tiny record collection. She loved him!

:D

I bought a whole load of vinyl on Saturday (Record Store Day), but I haven't had a record player since about 2000.

I am looking at buying one now though...

I got a USB record player back in 2008, mostly so I could copy some rare songs hard to find on CD or even iTunes/Youtube (usually late 80s/early 90s rave) onto my iPod. Back then you could go into HMV and buy 7" new releases for 99p - I've got No You Girls by Franz Ferdinand, Don't Upset the Rhythm by The Noisettes and a signed copy of La Roux's Bulletproof, and I don't remember anyone giving the vinyl section a second-glance other than me as the physical singles market was rapidly declining. I remember that year being in a charity shop in Woking and buying about 20 old records, ranging from the 1960s to early-mid 1990s, for 20p(!) each - the guy who ran the shop said he was pleased to finally be getting rid of them!

 

I bought one around the same time - one of my first priorities when I got it was to transfer all my old Shakin' Stevens albums and the singles B-sides to MP3 as they weren't available on CD. Then about 2 weeks later they announced the release of a 10 CD box set containing pretty much all his solo material....

 

Nobody ever called it "vinyl" or even worse "vinyls" until recently. They were records or, if being specific, 7"s, 12"s and LPs. That's what really annoys me. That and the annual "oh look, call Granny and tell her to buff up her Jim Reeves discs, vinyl has sold more than in recent times" articles in newspapers around Record Shop Day.

 

I too think it's baffling that people are buying records and not playing them but fair play to them. Should be pointed out though, that the high prices are often due to the high quality production costs for 180gm discs and the fact that smaller labels need to make some profit margin on smaller, more expensive runs. Maybe those costs will go down a bit if the pressing plants are all busy though.

 

It'd be a lot cheaper if everyone still manufactured flimsy, crap, paper thin records like when they were the dominant media.

 

I presume you mean that people referring to a record as "a vinyl" is a recent phenomenon, which is probably true. I think I first heard it from DJs around the turn of the century.

Obviously people have been calling the format vinyl for decades.

 

The pressing plants are busy, though, that's part of the reason prices are so high. There's a major shortage of capacity now because so many manufacturing plants closed down as the format declined and nobody's opening new ones. Some would argue that's why quality control has declined too.

 

 

That Manics 12" almost looks like it's not meant to be played - you'd have to break the seal and imagine getting fingermarks on that glossy cover. Somebody I follow on Twitter did play it and apparently they've just cut it from the album master so the end of the previous track is still audible at the start.

That's a really good point. I read an article recently that smaller labels have a very long turnaround now for producing their records because of the demand on UK pressing plants for what are essentially re-issues. For the small label I used to co-run, we always went to the Czech Republic for pressings. That was partly due to cost too, but it did mean a much longer wait.