Keeping what real? Vinyl records and the future of independent culture

Abstract

The revived popularity of vinyl records in the United States provides a unique opportunity for ‘rethinking the distinction between new and old media’. With vinyl, the new/old dichotomy informs a more specific opposition between digital and analog. The vinyl record is an iconic analog artifact whose physical creation and circulation cannot be digitized. Making records involves arduous craft labor and old-school manufacturing, and the process remains essentially the same as it was in 1960. Vinyl culture and commerce today, however, abound with digital media: the majority of vinyl sales occur online, the download code is a familiar feature of new vinyl releases, and turntables outfitted with USB ports and Bluetooth are outselling traditional models. This digital disconnect between the contemporary traffic in records and their fabrication makes the vinyl revival an ideal case example for interrogating the limitations of new and old as conceptual horizons for media and for proffering alternative historical formulations and critical frameworks. Toward that end, my analysis of the revitalized vinyl economy in the United States suggests that the familiar (and always porous) distinction between corporate and independent continues to offer media studies a more salient spectrum, conceptually and empirically, than new-old or analog-digital. Drawing on ethnographic research along vinyl’s current supply chain in the United States, I argue that scholars and supporters of independent culture should strive to decouple the digital and the analog from the corporate, rather than from one another. The pressing question about the future of vinyl is not, will there continue to be a place for analog formats alongside the digital; but rather, to what extent can physical media circulate independently of the same corporate interests that have come to dominate popular culture in its digital forms?

Rethinking the distinctions between old and new media: Introduction

“…The significance of these approaches for the debate on old and new media is aptly demonstrated by some of the articles in this special issue. Michael Palm (2019) shows us how vinyl’s career as cultural artefact can only be understood in light of its circulation within chains of industrial manufacture and commercial distribution that speak to deeper questions of the political economy of cultural production. We also see how the methodological strategy of life history can challenge common-sense categorical associations of a medium that reify specific cultural forms as specific technologies.…”

“…Bory convincingly demonstrates how long-standing narratives of dematerialization and the ethereal mind developed in science fiction literature were deployed to veil AI’s materiality and thereby reinforced discourses of technological evolution and perfection. Other contributions show that a similar discourse applies beyond the case of software: Kaminska’s (2019) account of how security printing, as ‘off-shoots’ of conventional printing practices, materializes trust through strategic deployment of complexity and quality, and Palm’s (2019) contribution about the industry of vinyl records raises difficult questions about how material categorical distinctions like the one between analogue and digital can obscure a deeper and more complex politics of material production and consumption.…”

Brick-and-Platform: Listing Labor in the Digital Vintage Economy

“…Vinyl and vintage clothing boutiques are often located in the same neighborhoods, even on the same blocks in urban centers or cultural districts, and some shops sell vintage clothing, accessories, and furniture as well as records. Popular record collecting genres, such as rock, jazz, and blues, tend to attract a predominately white male fan base (Palm, 2019, pp. 649–651; Petrusich, 2014; Straw, 1997), whereas vintage clothing is associated with femme subcultures, such as pinup fashion, and the performativity of whiteness (Dahl, 2014; Gajjala, 2015) entwined with a fetishization of racialized novelty prints and home goods (i.e., Tiki bar accessories).…”

“…In the comments section for each record, Store N implores shoppers to “BUY FROM A REAL RECORD STORE IN BROOKLYN,” highlighting the supposed authenticity of a physical location in a famously cool borough. Indeed, “Record Store Day,” held on the third Saturday in April since 2007, is predicated on the premise that transactions conducted inside “real” stores are ethically and experientially superior to online purchases (Harvey, 2017; Palm, 2019).…”

El disco es cultura: Sonic artifacts and Latinx Chicago

“…2121Palm's (2019) discussion provides a unique perspective on how the revived popularity of vinyl records in the United States allows the opportunity for rethinking the distinction between new and old media.…”