Stephen Mejias

The music industry is responding to our recent enthusiasm for vinyl, reports the Los Angeles Times. Original Recordings Group, a small vinyl-only label, needed only 24 hours to sell 4000 copies of TV on the Radio's excellent Return To Cookie Mountain. The label is on the way to grossing their first million dollars, and expects to double its vinyl output in 2009. Meanwhile, Warner Bros. has increased their vinyl production from 2000 copies per title to up to 15,000 copies. Such increases, of course, have a dramatic impact on pressing plants. Record Technology Inc's average pressing per title has doubled to 3000 units over the last few years.

Who's buying all of this vinyl?

Well, me. And you!

A brilliant mix of new releases and classic album reissues suggests the target audience for this vinyl upsurge is not limited to one particular age group or demographic. In time, vinyl may be the very thing that connects all music lovers, the thing that bridges the DJ to the audiophile, the college student to the neuroscientist, the editorial assistant to the VP & Group Publisher. We've spoken a lot about the difficulties of attracting a younger audience to hi-fi. Our attempts often reek of trying too hard. The young sense this insincerity and turn in the opposite direction. Through vinyl, we won't have to try at all; young and old will already share the love, and high end hi-fi will gain new life.

Our recent poll shows that most of our online readers are deep into the vinyl wave. While just 16% said they were happily wed to their compact discs, a whopping 64% have spent some amount of money on their vinyl rigs (not including LPs) over the last 12 months. Forty-seven percent of those respondents said they spent "a decent amount" or "quite a bit," while 34% said they spent "just a little bit" or already had all the analog equipment they needed. I don't know what the other 3% said.

A few of our readers even suggested that I am to blame for all this. I would love to take the credit, but I am just one dude. Remember, it was Michael Lavorgna and John DeVore who got me into this. Michael also had a mentor, and so did John. Vinyl enthusiasts like Art Dudley and Michael Fremer have shared their passion with countless others. There are those out there who will argue that listening to music is a solitary activity, and one that is becoming even lonelier by the second. I don't know what's up with these folks because every time I turn around, people are throwing listening parties. Dudes are calling their homies all like, "Yo, wanna come over and listen to the new Parts & Labor album?"

This is true.

I blame it on the kids, all tangled up in their headphone cables and hormones. Thank goodness for them.

Our current poll asks readers whether they've spent any money on LPs over the last 12 months.

Over the last 12 months?! Oh man, I've only been at this for four months, but I don't really want to think about how much money I've spent on new and used records. Here's what I've picked up over the last couple of weeks:

Thom Yorke: The Eraser
Leila: Blood, Looms, and Blooms
Xiu Xiu: Women as Lovers
Thurston Moore: Built For Love
Lee Ranaldo: Countless Centuries Fled into the Distance like So Many Storms
Xavier Cugat: The King Plays Some Aces
Rickie Lee Jones: s/t
Bonnie Raitt: Give It Up
Genya Ravan: …And I Mean It
Salsoul Orchestra: Nice 'n' Naasty
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Kicking Against the Pricks
Hugh Masekela: The Emancipation of Hugh Masekela
Hank Crawford: Tico Rico
Pete "El Conde" Rodriguez: A Touch of Class
Malombo: s/t
Fleet Foxes: s/t
My Brightest Diamond: A Thousand Shark's Teeth
Dan Freil: Ghost Town
Grails: Take Refuge in Clean Living
Daniel Menche: Body Melt
Kawabata Makoto: We Don't Know Where We Came From
Grinderman: s/t
Son Ambulance: Someone Else's Deja Vu
Bodies of Water: A Certain Feeling
Rodriguez: Cold Fact

Whew!