Firestyle Magazine Issue 1 - Autumn 2015 | Page 49

MUSIC Vinyl Resurgence Vinyl records sales continue to rise in a world where internet downloads are supposed to rule. CD sales are dropping rapidly and it is the CD that is slowly becoming the forgotten format. Vinyl is back, not just as a novelty item, but as an investment idea and also as the preferred method of listening to real quality music. The people who designed today’s CD standard twenty years ago, knew that vinyl records offered superior sound and had no qualms about saying so, it was the general public that decided to make the change having been fooled by clever advertising and also being attracted by the size of the format and the fact that you no longer had to get out your chair to turn the record over or to select tracks, everything could be done by click of a button. The Record companies could not believe their luck, everyone was about to buy the same record twice. Unfortunately digitalized music lacked the warmth of vinyl and listeners lost out when the CD failed to reproduce the full aural spectrum of sound previously offered by vinyl records. Today, many years later, and following the introduction of downloads, people have slowly began to realise that the quality of music is again being reduced and this time the physical product has also been removed. I find it ironic that the real Rock N Roll Swindle has taken place so many years after the Sex Pistols coined the phrase. Nick Courtney - Sweet Memories Vinyl Records UK visit my on-line shop at www.vinylrecords.co.uk 49