This appears to have gone beyond a brief fad now and vinyl is rapidly becomming the physical format of choice. And it isn't just old people either, but young 'hipsters' and quite ordinary people of all ages. It makes sense to me that we will have 2 distinct markets, one for digital and one for physical. It was not really any different in the old days when many people, myself included, made do with home recorded tapes of records, objects that had no real value or appeal in themselves.

Records are aesthetically much more pleasing than CDs and perhaps they are now rightly being seen as the perfect non-digital format for those who want an 'experience' with their music and a physical object to collect. They are just much more pleasing objects than CDs.

Yes, I certainly think it is something more than a fad. It's interesting that vinyl sales grew against falling sales of digital downloads for instance because streaming is more popular. I wonder if that might have anything to do with the fact that 'invisible' music is now seen as just one thing you can put on a smartphone now that Ipods are no longer being made as a dedicated platform for downloaded music?

I think though CDs can be just as well packaged and presented as vinyl or even more so. A silver disc in a brittle old jewel case these days doesn't do much for anyone. The wide variety of options for presentation however can be very pleasing, box sets, mini LP CDs, mixed media sets (vinyl and CD) etc. I only stopped buying vinyl because I have run out of room for it and only a clapped out old 80s stereo to play it on, but I don't think I could part with any of it even so.

PM

lets face it a properly produced vinyl record is a work of art not only to the eyes but to the ears also I for one are glad its back not sure about the rip off prices tho