The Rebirth of Vinyl

First off, let me say that I know vinyl's never really been dead. I've got a record collection myself, and would much rather lose my entire CD collection and my iPod before I lose those things. That said, however, it really has been replaced by the CD over the years as the primary physical source of music. What does a CD have over vinyl, though? When you think about it, really only the compactness. So, now that digital copies are around, making it much easier to take hundreds upon hundreds of albums anywhere in a device smaller than a CD, it doesn't make much sense to keep buying CDs. I guess that's why iTunes is getting so popular.

But what about the rest of us? The people who want the hard copy? The people who want the vinyl quality sound? The people who want the album artwork? Do we have to buy the CD or digital copies AND the vinyl?Well, recently, some distributors have come up with a new sales pitch that has made me want to buy an unused copy of an album for the first time in quite some time. Certain labels and distributors (such as Insound) are now selling vinyl copies of new releases along with a promotional code which you can use to download digital copies of the album straight to your computer, iPod or whatever. In some cases, even, record labels are taking pre-orders of new release vinyl and giving you the digital copies before the release date. With a price that's about the same as a CD, this whole concept is starting to make me forget some, but certainly not all, of why I hate the music industry.