The Vinyl LP – Yes It Is Still Alive

Vinyl LP record album

Back when I was a kid, the LP (which stands for “long play”) was the king of music. There was no internet (well, not for the public anyway), no streaming, no iTunes. When we went shopping for music, we went to Music Plus (the big record store chain near where I lived) and buy albums in LP format – we bought “records.”

But then along came the CD, and internet music. People pretty much forgot about records. DJs kept them alive for a long time, using them for scratching, stabbing, etc. But did you know that the music industry sells 7 or 8 million LPs a year? And not just for DJs. They are big with classic rock reissues, classical music, audiophiles and others.

It is generally agreed by certain audiophiles that vinyl records are capable of reproducing audio better than CDs – part of the analog-vs-digital argument. That argument will probably never end.

Anyway, the reason I bring any of this up is that my old frequent lunch buddy from when I lived in Virginia, Scott Dorsey, just wrote an article for Recording Magazine about LPs – what they are and how they are made. It’s really fascinating stuff.

[note: Scott’s article seems no longer to be there as of June 2020. so I have directed the link below to another fascinating article on the same topic on Rolling Stone – Vinyl Is Poised to Outsell CDs For the First Time Since 1986.

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