The War Is Over

Vinyl or streaming? CD or vinyl? Wake up and smell the coffee: the battle of the formats is a thing of the past

Some of you may be familiar with the story of the Japanese holdouts: at the end of WWII, when Japan had already surrendered, a group of soldiers didn’t get the memo and battled on.

Some of them fought for decades until they died.

What do these soldiers have to do with vinyl? Well, many vinyl lovers are doing the same: they are fighting a war that is well over.

Photo by Paulette Wooten on Unsplash

The false dichotomy

Record collectors, myself included, often come up with elaborate answers and explanations to justify our choice of format:

I prefer vinyl but I use streaming to discover new music…

Streaming is convenient when I’m on the move, but at home I prefer vinyl…

I still have some CDs, but nothing can beat that warm vinyl sound…

There is nothing wrong with these statements, except they are growing tired. And I say this to myself as much as I say this to the world.

Questions that ask us to choose between formats present a dichotomy that is stuck in the past. They respond to a set of dynamics that has evolved.

The only thing that hasn’t evolved is our mentality.

WTF? But isn’t your entire Substack about the superiority of vinyl, and how vinyl is better than streaming, and…

Yes… I know.

I still stand by the essence of everything I said.

The issue is not so much about our particular preference or habits. The problem is our mindset. That’s what needs to change.

The battle of the formats

For decades, we were drilled into believing that formats could replace each other. And to some extent, this was true. Or at least, that’s how it was sold to us, and we took it at face value.

The arrival of the cassette tape, and later the compact disc, made something abundantly clear: there was supposedly one way —a better, superior way— to listen to music.

These two formats brought what vinyl lacked: portability and convenience. Music in your car. Music on the go.

Photo by Eric Nopanen on Unsplash

Complaints of hissing and the inconvenience of having to rewind tapes paved the way for the interim winner as it conquered the 90s and early noughties.

The poison that killed the CD was, paradoxically, the elixir it survived on: convenience and portability.

Fast forward (absolutely no pun intended) to streaming’s absolute reign, and one thing is clear: that particular battle has ended, and there’s one clear winner.

But that’s not the end of the story…

Status and power

While the vinyl revival movement is a complex sociocultural phenomenon, it can be easily summarised as follows: vinyl is sexy, iconic, timeless and powerful.

Above all, it is magical.

This magic is as technical as it is psychological: yes, there are variables that make it stand out (sonically and visually), but it also has, put simply, a certain allure that other formats cannot imitate.

And this is where it gets interesting: as a status symbol, and as the ultimate revolutionary statement from music fans who want an immersive music experience, vinyl is not just the winner: it plays on a completely different league altogether.

Photo by Andrew Santellan on Unsplash

Changing mindsets

I once dated a guy whose pet peeve was film/book comparisons: when people discussed whether they preferred Lord of the Rings the book as opposed to Lord of the Rings the film, he insisted you should compare books to books and movies to movies.

It didn’t matter that it was, essentially, the same story. His view was that works of art should be judged against other pieces of the same medium. Anything else was apples and pears.

I don’t know if I completely agree with his stance, but I feel that, to some extent, the vinyl versus streaming debate is heading in that direction.

New beginnings

Have you noticed that, still to this day, year recaps and record sales numbers are presented in a way that pits formats against each other?

I’m the first to admit that we then go on and repeat this message.

It’s not entirely our fault, though. The information is conceived with these old dynamics in mind, and it’s within that particular ecosystem that we process it, digest it and distribute it.

Even some teenagers might have been caught in all this.

Photo by Lena Kudryavtseva on Unsplash

Old habits die hard. I’m at that sweet juncture in life when I’m old enough to have seen my fair share, but young enough to feel what’s coming. And I feel the winds are changing.

Streaming is here to stay. Vinyl as well.

One has what the other lacks. They are at such extreme ends of the spectrum that they are complementary.

Could these two rivals be playing tricks on us, coexisting in harmony, when down here we’re still waging war?

I don’t have a definitive answer, but I’ll be watching closely.

Thanks for reading/listening. Happy spinning!