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https://www.wsj.com/articles/best-turntables-vinyl-boom-11652807756
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IT’S AN UNDERSTATEMENT to say we’re in the middle of a vinyl renaissance: For the first time since the mid-1980s, U.S. vinyl sales hit $1 billion in 2021, according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Both indie and megastar acts are putting out their albums in analog form. Special limited editions, made of untraditionally vivid plastic, like the blue version of
Vince Staples’s eponymous 2021 album, are selling out promptly. The trend has spawned a multitude of bizarre vinyl variants. The 2015 “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” soundtrack projects a hologram while playing in the right lighting conditions. Possibly weirder, the 30th anniversary “Ghostbusters” soundtrack from 2014 arrives marshmallow-scented.
While it’s easy to assume the boom is driven by faux-nostalgia, an example of Zoomers and millennials ransacking dated technology in search of something “cool,” there are compelling reasons to buy a physical record in 2022. In the age when Spotify might pay an artist fractions of a penny per stream of a song, a record lets you support the same musician in a more concrete way, giving them a better cut of the action. Bonus: Albums come in often-handsome sleeves that can be held, pondered, read, re-read and displayed, unlike a download code.
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This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com.
