Introduction

Mojo, one of Britain’s biggest-selling music magazines, decided that 2011’s trend of the year was ‘the vinyl revival’ (Aston and Eccleston 2012: 50). To start 2012 the BBC radio station 6 Music declared that its New Year’s Day would be ‘all vinyl’ (‘Vinyl Set to Make Radio Comeback for One Day Only’ 2011). Mojo and 6 Music were responding to an upturn in the sound carrier’s fortunes. Although vinyl lost its status as Britain’s leading albums format as long ago as 1985 and thus looked set for a permanent decline, sales of vinyl LPs rose year on year by 43.7 per cent in 2011.1 In the US the success of the format was better still: sales of vinyl LPs increased by over 1 million in the same year (Halliday 2012). And yet this wasn’t the first of vinyl’s revivals. British sales of 45 rpm, 7″ singles rose by 260 per cent between 2003 and 2006, and a more prolonged growth period was experienced by the 12″ single: here the British market produced more records in 2002 than it did in 1996. Crucial to vinyl’s successes is the fact that both old and new repertoire is issued on this format. Equally important is the fact that it is not just people who grew up with vinyl who are buying these records. Although a report issued in 2008 claimed that one in five 18-to-24-year-olds has no knowledge of analogue record players, there are many among this age group who are buying vinyl discs (‘Fantastic Gadgets of the Future’ 2008). According to HMV, Britain’s last high- street record store chain, ‘Teenagers and students’ constituted the ‘main market’ for vinyl singles during the 2000s (Tomkins 2008). In addition, it has been reported that the market for turntables is ‘in rude health’ (Pell 2007), reflected by the fact that John Lewis began re-stocking this product in 2011. There are different ways of looking at these vinyl returns. On the one hand, they are remarkable. There have been many other sound recording formats – cylinders, shellac discs, tape cassettes, compact discs, mini discs, and so on – but vinyl is alone in reversing sales trends in this manner. On the other hand, it should be noted that sales of the format are minor. In 2006 combined sales of 7″ and 12″ singles accounted for just 3.4 per cent of the UK singles market, and in 2011 vinyl LPs made up only 0.3 per cent of British album sales. But then again, it is arguable that these lowly sales figures only render vinyl’s survival more impressive. Vinyl receives attention out of all proportion to its market performance. In the twenty-first century it has been the subject of numerous articles in the music press and daily newspapers, including editorials in Music Week and the Guardian

1 Unless otherwise stated, all figures for music sales, trade deliveries and the price of recordings within the UK are derived from British Phonographic Industry statistics (). 2 Vinyl: A History of the Analogue Record

(Talbot 2007: 20; ‘Vinyl Solution’ 2005; ‘In Praise Of … Vinyl Records’ 2007). It has been the common subject of questionnaires: ‘which format do you prefer: vinyl, CD or MP3?’, now often reduced to just ‘vinyl or MP3?’ (Hanman 2006; Roberts, J. 2008: 5). For many it is vinyl rather than the CD that has been more effective at offering an alternative and a complement to the digital download. Adam Woods of Music Week has stated, ‘it is easy to believe that the format could thrive even as the CD begins to lose ground to the Internet’ (2004: 15). The Financial Times has commented that ‘the 7 in single is fast becoming the last tangible format for the single release’ (Tomkins 2008). A similar view can even be heard at major record companies. Lyor Cohen, the CEO of Recorded Music for the Warner Music Group, stated in 2011 that ‘vinyl will definitely outlast CDs because of the resonance, the sound; the quality is closest to the way the artist wants you to hear it’ (Lindvall 2011). The digital file is the first incorporeal recording format; it receives its representation by means of its player or the interface on a computer screen. There remains a need to visualize individual songs or album collections. Here it is the vinyl record that has been turned to. While the CD is routinely ignored, vinyl imagery has proliferated. This tendency can be seen in advertising (T-Mobile, Sky and Yellow Pages have each used vinyl in TV commercials since 2005) and it can be seen in fine art (in 2010 Duke University gathered artistic responses to the format in the exhibition The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl). Musicians, too, are more likely to sing about vinyl than they are about the CD (in recent years it has been referenced by Corinne Bailey Rae in ‘Put Your Records On’ and Keane in ‘Perfect Symmetry’). In addition, digital technologies have attempted to mimic vinyl. In 2009 FreeStyleGames released the game DJ Hero, which features a digital reproduction of a vinyl record’s grooves. Playlist Player launched a hi-fi system in 2010 that plays MP3s as though they are vinyl discs: its plan is to turn ‘digital playlists into physical objects that you can touch, treasure, drop, lose or spill beer on’ (). In 2011 the AirVinyl app was made available for Apple’s iPad, a product that aims to ‘recreate the ambience, warmth and experience of vinyl recordings, transforming your MP3 and digital collection into your record collection bringing back all the warmth of analogue harmonics’ (). Why is it that we can’t let go of the vinyl record? This book is part of this phenomenon but it is also an attempt to explain it. Its purpose is threefold: to tell the history of the vinyl record, to explore the format’s entwined relationship with music, and to address the reasons for its lasting appeal. To examine these strands I take an anatomical approach. The vinyl record has distinct auditory, visual and tactile qualities, and one way they can be delineated is by breaking the record down into its component parts. The first chapter addresses the groove and its ability to make sound visible, touchable and mortal. The second chapter traces the triumph of the disc format over the cylinder and with it the ascendancy of professional over amateur recording. The third chapter is concerned with the label, detailing the INTRODUCTION 3 consequences of labelling practices for record companies, music genres and record collectors. The fourth chapter is concerned with vinyl itself, examining changing perceptions as this plastic product moved from being considered a mass-produced good to a luxury item. The fifth chapter details the evolution of the LP record, looking at its development for classical music, its adoption by other genres, and the characteristics that have helped to define ‘the best albums of all time’. The sixth chapter concerns the 45 rpm single, tracing the ways in which the jukebox and the radio helped to shape the format, and looking at the reasons why the 7″ single came to be associated with particular genres of popular music. The seventh chapter looks at the peculiarities of b-sides and 12″ singles, the aspects of the vinyl record that most obviously brought forth new forms of music. Finally, the project, like the vinyl record itself, is wrapped up with the sleeve, an item that has interpreted and affected the music that it enshrouds. Within this structure the route taken is broadly historical (only the b-side and sleeve appear out of turn). This reveals an anomaly: vinyl arrives quite late in the story. Although ‘vinyl’ is the favoured name at present, ‘disc’ and ‘record’ have also been used to describe the subject of this book. The three terms have been used interchangeably but they have different origins: the first describes a material, the next a shape and the last is the result of an action that has taken place. Each of these factors is important in the history of the format and each term has come to the fore as that particular factor has been prioritized, but none of them encompasses the whole tale. ‘Vinyl’ is not always appropriate. Whereas the favour that the format enjoys is partially attributable to the material from which it is made, many of the characteristics that relate to it – the groove, the label, the shape, the b-side and the sleeve - were in existence before vinyl was developed, and are necessarily examined in this work. ‘Disc’ also has its faults. While a lineage of shared characteristics can be traced back through vinyl, shellac and earlier discs, the compact disc is a radically different format. In fact, it was partially in response to the arrival of the CD that the term ‘vinyl’ came to be more regularly used for the product it replaced. ‘Record’, on the other hand, encompasses all analogue discs and it is not commonly used in reference to the compact disc. But not all records are discs. The term was originally used to describe cylinders as well, and was used as such by Thomas Edison in his original sound recording patent of 1877. The diversity of this vinyl/disc/record is one of the keys to its popularity. In taking an anatomical approach I aim to reveal how important each of these facets has been. The various parameters of the vinyl record – the length of its recordings, its tonal range, its packaging, its retail price – have all helped to determine the music that it contains. In addition, this book argues that the vinyl record has been ‘articulated’. For Stuart Hall an articulation is a ‘form of connection that can make a unity of two different elements, under certain conditions’ (1996: 141. Emphasis in original). What distinguishes the analogue record as a format is not only its diverse range of elements, but also the extent to which these elements have been articulated: disc sizes, disc speeds, record labels and sleeves have all been used to advance particular musical causes and values. Indeed, the format’s 4 Vinyl: A History of the Analogue Record various revivals can be related to the fortunes of different genres, which in turn have carved out niches on different types of vinyl. The 2011 increase in LP sales came largely in the field of rock music. The success of the vinyl single in the mid 2000s was largely due to the popularity of indie guitar bands during this period. The genre that did the most to help vinyl production continue during the 1990s was dance music, which favoured the 12″ single. The greatest difficulty this project has faced has been regarding what to include and exclude. In terms of repertoire, there have been countless songs and numerous musical styles in the 135-year history of the analogue record. By necessity I have had to introduce selective criteria. One pathway into this mass of recordings is to focus upon the genres of music that have remained loyal to vinyl and to ask why. Another is to address the most significant breakthroughs in vinyl’s history as well as those moments when the disc was clearly being articulated. I believe that the work is at its most fruitful when these two trajectories coincide. This project favours genres such as rock, punk, indie and dance music (which have been conscious of the possibilities and meanings of recording formats) ahead of pop music (which has been more broadcast related) and classical repertoire (which has been performance focused). Pop and classical are aligned in that, as they are less attached to specific formats, they have had no qualms about leaving those formats behind: both genres found it relatively easy to abandon vinyl. Within the thesis there is a concentration on major artists: Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, the Rolling Stones and in particular the Beatles. For the most part it has been the biggest-selling artists who have had the power to shape and transform the conceptions that surround musical formats. The book looks at the vinyl record through two other key sets of players. It charts the music industry’s battles, as different companies, both major and independent, sought jurisdiction over this format. And it looks at the reactions of audiences, who have been pulled in different directions by the record’s split personality: it is both the carrier of artworks and an assembly-line product. Within this remit my focus is principally upon the British market. This is not as reductive as it might first appear. The British market has been concentrated upon the output of the two countries that dominated world sales (and ownership) of popular music during the peak years of vinyl record production: the US and the UK (it also encompasses another vinyl-centric genre: the reggae music of Jamaica). Although it was in the US that most of the components of the vinyl record were invented, the British market had its own take on each development. In placing my focus here I wish to redress the balance of existing histories of sound recording, many of which have concentrated on the American industry (Chapple and Garofalo 1977; Kenney 1999; Millard 1995; Sanjek and Sanjek 1991). Finally, there is the decision regarding which aspects of the vinyl record to explore. This book devotes more space to the historical, visual and tactile properties of the format than it does to its auditory qualities. When examining the latter I restrict myself to a discussion of the limitations that the format has set regarding duration, sound quality, volume and tonal range. Perhaps the most surprising omission is any sustained discussion regarding vinyl’s alleged INTRODUCTION 5 superiority in terms of sound quality. Personally, I do think that vinyl records sound better than compact discs, and that they are superior to digital downloads. However, this opinion is almost impossible to prove. First of all, statistics regarding dynamic range and signal-to-noise ratios are in favour of the compact disc; any superiority accorded to vinyl has to take into account the restrictions that this recording medium has set upon sound reproduction. Secondly, even if scientific testing were to prove that most participants preferred the sound of a compressed vinyl record to that of digital technologies, what we would then have to face is the disparity, not only between different eras of sound recording, but also between the reproduction capabilities of each individual’s record playing equipment. There can be no absolute conclusions regarding sound quality. What I aim to reveal in this book is that the vinyl record only grows more interesting when you realize that much of its appeal lies elsewhere.