A couple of days ago it was announced that, in the previous week, vinyl album sales (or the amount spent thereon) had exceeded digital downloads for the first time ever.
Whilst it might be fashionable to celebrate this news as a victory for the old "organic" ways, I take a more sober and pragmatic view. Nobody is more nostalgic than me, and the efforts to promote vinyl sales, and indeed the continuing prevalence of the CD, are to be applauded. I get the impression that the "vinyl movement" is preoccupied more with extolling the virtues of the old format(s) than denigrating the new technologies, but my own views on these issues have shifted in recent times.
The most common assertions of the vinyl enthusiasts seem to be that vinyl records have a distinctively vibrant sound which is absent from digital music, and that there is a real satisfaction in handling or collecting "tangible" objects as opposed to clicking on links on a computer screen or 'phone.
There may be a sound unique to vinyl, although it arguably requires keen and trained ears to fully discern it. I don't think that digital music is as "antiseptic" and sterile as some people like to make out. As to the second point, I was actually glad to leave behind the notion of handling "physical" records and CDs when I embraced digital downloads and streaming a few years ago. The worry of leaving finger marks and blemishes on records began to become a thing of the past!
Oddly enough, whilst digital has become my favoured means of enjoying music, I don't feel the same way about books. Kindle and e-books still very much take second place to "real" books in my affections. Don't ask me to explain the apparent contradiction; it is just the way I feel.
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