“It’s fun to experiment with things you weren’t alive for,” freshman Laya Goldstein said. Goldstein collects Gracie Abrams and Taylor Swift records.
Even with the rise of digital music options and streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music, vinyl has been resurrected from the past and regained popularity in recent years, especially among younger generations.
“Vinyl is nostalgic,” Goldstein said. “Even though I wasn’t alive when they had record players, you pretend you were.”
While new digital music formats are more convenient, vinyl can uncover the imperfections and details of music, creating a sense of nostalgia that many listeners seek.
“It’s a throwback to earlier times,” Gary Saxon, owner of vinyl store The Record Man in Redwood City, said.
Streaming services compress the sound components of a song to create a digital recording, often removing minor details. While the difference is often barely noticeable, vinyl enthusiasts argue this process takes away the nuances and flaws that give music its warm and homey feel.
“Vinyl is analog. Digital is digital. Analog is all the information that it records. Digital is digitized—it’s not all the information,” Saxon said. “Digital is a purer sound.”
This classic format of music isn’t just being revived because of the unique sound quality it provides. Many also like records for their decorative value. “When I became a teacher, I wanted historical ‘artifacts’ to hang up in my room, and album covers came to mind,” history teacher Karen Ramroth said. Ramroth collects her album covers from antique stores, thrift shops, and small-town record shops.
Junior Kealy Bryman started collecting vinyl when she was 10 years old. “I remember when I was younger, I got a gift, and it was one of those really cheap suitcase vinyl. That’s kind of where it all started,” Bryman said. “I’ve obviously upgraded since then, but it was fun when I first started collecting.”
Over the past decade, vinyl sales have increased annually across the country. In 2023, Taylor Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version) was the most-sold album in the country, selling over a million within months. She was responsible for 7% of vinyl sales last year, selling 3.5 million albums.
With vinyl making such a comeback, it’s clear the sound of the past is spinning into the future.
