[Today: Reissuing the 90s...]
Compact discs started showing up in record stores in the mid-80s, but co-existed peacefully with tapes and LPs for a few years before sales of the latter formats started to sputter out. By the end of that decade, it was nearly impossible to find a new release on LP – music stores were literally giving away vinyl in an effort to clear rack space for compact discs. Between 1989 and 1994, a miniscule number of new releases were made available on LP, and while that number grew as the 90s wore on, it was still more or less a dead decade for long playing 33 & 1/3s.
But lately, labels have started to go back to that lost decade and re-issue some of its greatest hits on vinyl. Plain Recordings seems to be on a one company mission to re-release the 90s on wax, with a flurry of recent affordable, 180 gram vinyl re-issues of heretofore un-spinnable albums like Primus’ Sailing The Seas Of Cheese, The Black Crowes’ Southern Harmony & Musical Companion, Ween’s The Mollusk (along with the rest of their catalogue) and Wilco’s Summer Teeth (ditto on their catalogue).
Based out of the UK, Simply Vinyl has been up to the same thing for a few years now, putting out high-quality re-issues of classic 90s albums such as Nirvana’s Nevermind, Nas’ Illmatic and Radiohead’s OK Computer. Speaking of Radiohead, they recently re-released every note of their catalogue on LP, along with a variety of singles that encompass B-sides and 12″ mixes. Radiohead has released so much stuff on vinyl in the last year that every record store in the free world now has an overstuffed bin of their albums. But they’re hardly alone – virtually every new release is now given the LP treatment.
Why the sudden explosion in vinyl releases? The obvious answer is also the correct one – money. For a withering music industry, LP sales represent one of the few growth markets going right now. Take a second to think about the staggering irony of that statement. If ever there was a real-life corollary to the tortoise and hare fable, it’s the sales trajectories of the LP and the CD. While compact discs have gone through a boom/bust cycle that now finds them on the path to extinction that LPs faced in the late-80s, vinyl has enjoyed modest, sustained growth since the late 90s, and is now back. It may be the result of cold-blooded capitalism, but lately microeconomics have given music fans something to cheer about…
Listen: Remedy [Black Crowes]
Listen: The Mollusk [Ween]
Listen: Time Will Tell [Black Crowes]
Listen: Waving My Dick In The Wind [Ween]
Tags: Black Crowes, Nas, Nirvana, Plain Recordings, Primus, Radiohead, Simply Vinyl, Ween, Wilco
