The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/vinyl/)
Vinyl is back. Record sales are in their 16th consecutive year of growth. In the U.S. alone, sales are up to $1.2 billion a year from just $14.2 million in 2007. Oddly enough, it’s not Boomers and Gen X-ers seeking nostalgia or following old habits, but Gen Z and millennials driving the sales boom. But why?
Records, like books, offer a subtle sentimentality that many of us seek in the modern era. I grew up listening to my dad’s records, albums he had carefully collected over the course of his adolescent and adult life. He filled our house with Steely Dan on Saturday mornings and Bob Dylan on Sundays. As I got older, he would routinely take my brother and I into Boston to look at used records. We’d accompany him to old shops that smelled of musk and mildew, watching as he carefully sorted through boxes and shelves until he found a record that intrigued him.
Of all who give and receive vinyl, such as they are the wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the deejays. I spent this New Year’s celebrating Christmas. My girlfriend, Kaitlyn, arrived midday and we immediately took to opening our presents.