There is a resurgence of artists who are ditching digital in favor of the original analog technology. Analog still feels really good.
Many people artistically mount favorite albums, in their original covers, in frames on the wall. Carefully chosen to be a collection, much the way a gallery owner might choose which paintings to hang together.
We have all the music converted to MP3 files, and listen to it digitally, but the album covers remain something of real value. Why is that?
“Even though we’re living in the days of digital, there are still many young, emerging artists who love old media with a sense of nostalgia that sometimes borders on fetishism – especially for equipment they’ve often never used,” writes Yanto Browning in “Why Does Analogue Still Feel Good in a Digital World?”
Browning notes that, while most of the film, photography and music industries moved to digital tools, there is still a love and respect for their analog media counterparts.
“Artists such as Jack White, with his last record being made on a 1960s Neve console and vintage 8-track tape machine, are inspirational to this new generation and the growth of cassette-based record labels has surprised a lot of people in the industry who considered the domestic analogue format long dead,” he argues.
Part of the charm in analog is what Browning refers to as “nonlinearities,” the distortions that come along with translating real life into analog recordings. And many artists find the “too clean” output of digital to be missing something in that translation.
“It’s not so much that the new digital tools can’t do the job properly; it’s more that they do the job too well. We miss the fuzziness, blurriness and saturation that analogue can give us, but need the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of digital formats,” he says.
Consumers seems to agree on some level, as vinyl records sales are rising, and some film directors choose to work on film due to the limits it imposes and the sense of scarcity and urgency it imparts.
And those album covers will continue to look great on the family room wall, calling to mind the hours spent poring over liner notes with the headphones on.
September 16, 2015, 3:55 pm
Thanks for the post!
Memories of “playing vinyl records” cannot exist for me without remembering how one would hold of the cardboard sleeve (album cover) and read the liner notes and gaze at the chosen image to accompany the enclosed music. What’s even more telling about albums is that few people listened to them with headphones (compared to today). Headphones in those days were fitted with large cups that covered the ears and thick cords and a large 1/4 inch plug that was pushed into the amplifier, like a telephone switchboard.
The experience was analog, and it was public. The music played in the space where the stereo equipment existed: a living room, bedroom, studio. There wasn’t a way to have direct music in the kitchen, the garage, or while riding a bicycle or skateboard or walking down the sidewalk.
In fact, according to this article (http://www.buzzle.com/articles/timeline-and-history-of-the-walkman.html), Phillips and Yamaha turned down an earlier version of the Sony Walkman way back in 1972 because they felt that the public didn’t want to listen to music outdoors through headphones.
It’s not just the thing being played (CD, MP3, vinyl), it’s also the experience and immediacy of the sound. . . approximating a live performance in that it’s a shared experience. This can be directly compared to reading real books with covers that can be seen by others vs. reading on a Kindle or smart phone, where what you are reading is a complete mystery to those around you.