No Blood for Vinyl: Spin Green

Oil prices could sink the vinyl record boom. Well at least the new vinyl record boom. Records are made of petroleum. And high oil prices are making it more and more expensive to press new records. The cost is being passed along to the consumer.

The actual cost of manufacturing a record is much as 10 times the expense of a CD. One benefit to higher prices could be only the best music gets pressed. An artist and label will have to believe in the importance of the music to commit to the soaring costs of pressing new records.

Vintage record dealers are finding a good fit with the current economic conditions and the benefits of selling online. MusicStack, an online music marketplace, features 25 million listings from over 3,500 dealers. The majority of their listings are for vintage products.

Local record stores selling used records are finding a growing business within their local communities. They have the added benefit of saving on shipping costs which are high due to increased fuel prices. (Records are heavy!)

Either way the politics of buying a record will ultimately be decided by the dollar. Spin green, save a few bucks. Save a few gallons of oil.

Check out How Records Are Made for an overview of the record manufacturing process.

Vinyl is Back Says New York Times

Apparently the iPod generation is fueling the resurgence. A younger, new-to-vinyl audience has discovered vinyl records sound better than digital files.

The full article may be found here: Vinyl Records and Turntables Are Gaining Sales

Creative Record Shelves

Got a clever vinyl storage solution? Send a picture to home@latimes.com with your contact information. They will post the best ones on their site.

Here is the full article.

Records - The iPhone App

Tired of getting burned by mediocre record purchases? Yeah,,, I know — sometimes the album covers are million times better then the music inside.

Well here is a little app you can use to check out what is going on with a questionable LP. This program runs on the iPhone,,, you have an iPhone, right?

Check it out here: http://parasol.fi/records/

Bob Dylan Who?

Bob Dylan frogmarched by a cop who didn’t know what vinyl records are.

The times they are a changing! She’ll know what records are soon enough.