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.

Bughouse Art & Design Print

Check out the vintage vinyl inspired artwork of Jeff Klarin and Rebecca Johnson at Bughouse Art & Design.

“Our creative role as artist-designers allows us to subvert the expectations placed on functional objects and bring the expressive singularity of fine art to a larger audience by producing limited edition prints and paintings. We mine the past and present for inspiration. We find beauty in many areas such as vintage ephemera, pharmacology, rock ‘n’ roll and occult victoriana.”

Their record sleeve table allows for product customization. You can pick the albums to be used for the end-caps. Check out the Album Side Table.

Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before, 2003

Records are popping up everywhere – even the MoMA! This piece by Jonathan Monk is part of a current exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Monk has matched a series of 12 album covers by The Smiths with a series of watercolor and pencil works on paper. Working within the realm of Conceptualism he places emphasis on ideas rather than aesthetic appeal.

Hmmm,,, the How Soon Is Now? record sleeve was rather appealing. I’ve heard the song a million times, but this was the first time I’ve seen the original album cover. Stop me if you think I’m not allowed to touch it.

Steve Wolfe, Untitled (Mary Poppins), 1993 - Oil, enamel, lithography, and graphite on board

Steve Wolfe meticulously re-creates everyday objects such as book covers and vinyl records to investigate the intersections among material culture, intellectual history, and personal and collective memory. Wolfe works in the tradition of trompe l’oeil and his pieces literally fool the eye on first inspection.

The “Steve Wolfe On Paper” exhibit at the Anne & Joel Ehrenkranz Gallery at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City in November included several record sleeves and records in the show. The vinyl records appear genuine but these are objects made from modeling paste. Wolfe has gone so far as to leave a few fingerprints on the grooves and a few well placed scratches. They look like my records!

If you missed his show you can check out his work in the Steve Wolfe on Paper book from the Whitney Museum of American Art (Hardcover):

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