Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986

Re:Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986 by ch4s3 on Sunday September 08, 2019 @12:09PM (#20911363)

I think it's a mix of aesthetics, nostalgia, and some elements of the experience. Vinyl albums have big. often interesting art. Browsing a collection of vinyl has an element of serendipity as well, who knows what you may and on. Additionally, the listening experience is different because it's hard to skip around, songs bleed into one another.

It's a case of worse is better.

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Re:Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986 by benologist on Sunday September 08, 2019 @12:21PM (#20911444)

I think it's mostly nostalgia because if you listen to music a lot in album form you'll ruin them, if you have kids you'll ruin them, if you have friends you'll ruin them, if they're near a window you'll ruin them, your record player can ruin them, an earthquake can ruin them. This is a music format with moving, degrading parts.

I think LPs are bad for our environment compared to digital. I don't need tens of kilograms of plastic to enjoy music even if I would enjoy the process more than digital music players.

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Re:Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986 by reaperducer on Sunday September 08, 2019 @01:20PM (#20911858)

I don't need tens of kilograms of plastic to enjoy music

What brand of computer, MP3 player, or phone are you using that isn't made of plastic and filled with minerals that come from strip mines and processed with chemicals like cyanide?

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Re:Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986 by benologist on Sunday September 08, 2019 @01:30PM (#20911933)

You're totally right that there's a massive environmental cost either way.

Digitally the price per song of is offset by the sheer number of albums you can have. I have 1,926 albums and I can overwrite them with new artists on the same storage and I can add 10x more to the same storage. Or I can reuse the storage for something else. This versatility is called "re-use" and it's a pillar of environmental sustainability.

If it wasn't a malleable plastic, and I've read of metals being used, then perhaps it would be different. But even then density and permanence and shipping still make it incredibly inefficient to distribute data in this fashion - an LP only holds about 200 - 300 megabytes of write-once data.

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Re:Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986 by mises on Sunday September 08, 2019 @09:49PM (#20914579)

The marginal negative environmental externality of one more digital song is very low. That of a record is essentially constant.

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Re:Vinyl set to outsell CDs for first time since 1986 by reaperducer on Monday September 09, 2019 @12:33PM (#20919672)

Make a record and the environmental damage is done.

Steaming music continues environmental damage for as long as the server is on.

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