March 24, 2001: Vinyl Records Suck

Yeah, that's right. You heard me. They suck. And in my latest attempt to piss off all the nostalgists and "I'm too underground for my own good" types out there, I'm going to tell you why. You vinyl nerds have lots of explanations for why vinyl is better; the only problem is that none of them make sense. Such as the following:

"It has a richer sound than CD." Yeah, if by "richer," you mean full of hisses and pops. When you hear a CD, you hear exactly what the band sounded like when they recorded, and I'm not sure how anyone can claim that's a negative. Some vinyl-nerds have said something about the treble being too high on CDs, (odd, as in my experience, it's the other way around) but here's a little hint for you... If the CD sounds too high-pitched, look at your stereo. I'm pretty sure there has never been a device capable of playing compact discs that didn't also have a graphic equalizer, some way to control the bass and treble, or at least a knob marked "tone," like my piece of shit has. Use those things!

"With vinyl, you get to use your imagination more when you listen." Believe it or not, I've heard people say this crap on more than one occasion. It's like saying, "removing your car's shocks is better, because you get to imagine a smooth ride" or, "getting your eyes gouged out rocks, because you can imagine what things look like." If you want to listen to music, buy a CD. It makes no sense to listen to a worn out, scratched record and sit back, thinking, "Gee, I wonder what this recording really sounds like. I know! I'll use my imagination!" What a load. If you want to use your imagination in regards to music, start a damn band.

Compact discs are just *slightly* smaller than an LP.

See what I mean? And it's not just sound quality where compact discs are vastly superior.

CDs are portable. Records aren't. Have you ever seen a car equipped with a record player? When you have something on an LP you want to listen to in a Walkman-type device or car, you have to make a tape of it. Why not just buy the cassette instead? When you want to take twenty CDs somewhere, you can simply pop them into a $12 wallet thingy that damn near fits in your pocket. If you want to take twenty records somewhere, you need a box that you have to carry with both arms to make sure nothing happens to them. Records are huge. A full length compact disc is about five inches across. A full length album is twelve inches across, and if it's a particularly long album, it takes two records. Which brings me to the next point.

CDs hold more sound at a smaller size. A full-length, twelve inch, 33 rpm record can hold something like thirty minutes. A 45 rpm seven inch record holds around fifteen minutes. A five inch CD can hold just under eighty minutes. There's simply no competition.

CDs are more durable than vinyl records. Actually, that might be the understatement of the century. Calling a CD "more durable" than a vinyl record is a lot like saying water is "more moist" than newspaper. If a CD gets scuffed or scratched, unless it's really bad, you never notice. If a vinyl record gets the slightest hint of a scratch or piece of dust on it, you hear it. Here are some personal examples. My mother has Metallica's ...And Justice for All on vinyl. I have it on CD. (To illustrate a previous point, her copy is split over two records. Mine is on one CD) On visual inspection, her records look flawless. My CD (a second hand one I bought from my cousin for three bucks) looks like someone tied it to a dog's ass and let it drag behind him on a gravel driveway all day. Upon listening, her copy is full of pops and hisses, with some skipping during the intro to "Eye of the Beholder." My copy sounds perfect. A few years ago, my brother gave me a copy of a Tool CD he had, because it had a crack in it, and he had gotten a new copy. Yes, that's right. Not a scratch, not a scuff... A CRACK. As in a place where the plastic does not connect anymore. And the son of a bitch still plays. Yeah, there is some skipping in the last few songs if you don't push the halves together just right, but DAMN. If a record gets cracked, it's "bye bye, record." Also, with years of heavy play, vinyl records wear out. The grooves smooth out. I'm not sure a CD has ever physically worn out. It would take centuries, I bet...

CDs cost less to make. A lot of people won't believe me on this. It seems like a CD would cost more, what with all the new fangled technology and lasers and robots and space ships and such. But I was looking through some old zines a few days ago, and found these prices from a company that presses records for shitty pop punk bands: 1,000 12" Black Vinyl records - $1851. 1,000 Two-color CDs, up to 72 minutes - $1369. That's five hundred bucks cheaper to get your shitty band pressed on a smaller, more durable format, with twice as much music on each disc. And if you wanted some fancy picture disc, the price jumps to nearly three thousand bucks. Scary.

You can't record on vinyl. With a system around three hundred bucks, you can now record stuff on CD. Hell, you can record on cassette with any twenty dollar bottom-of-the-line tape player available at Fred's Dollar Store. Unless you own a goddamn record production plant, you can't record on vinyl. Bitch.

You don't have to flip a CD over, and some tape decks have auto-reverse. I think record players that automatically flip records over only exist in "push button house of the future" cartoons from the fifties, where a robot maid chases Tom and Jerry around with a broom. And if it's an album over an hour, not only do you have to get off your fat hippie ass to flip it over, but after another fifteen minutes, you also have to go take the record off the player, put it back in a sleeve, pull another record out of the sleeve, place it on the turntable, position the needle at the beginning, and do all of this as delicately as you would handle an armed grenade, because if you move with any speed at all, the record will become a scratched-up, useless piece of plastic. Screw that. Just put in a CD and let it fly, baby. And if your stereo is any good at all, you'll already have another CD ready and playing as soon as that one ends, without moving a muscle. Convenience.

So if you prefer a huge, fragile, inflexible medium with bad sound that costs more to make, you can keep listening to your precious records. If that's what you want to do, fine. But no matter what you say, vinyl sucks, and nothing will ever change that. The seventies are over. Buy a goddamn CD player.