Yes, vinyl does have retro appeal. It looks cool, the sound quality is stellar and the enlarged art work really ties it all together, just like the The Dude's rug in "The Big Lebowski."
And all the cool kids are doin' it. Vinyl showed its strongest sales in more than 15 years in 2008, with nearly 2 million units sold. That's nearly double 2007's output, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Neat! So this makes vinyl the Lazarus of music formats, right? My answer to that is a resounding, "Sorta!"
"Double the number of albums sold" sounds nice, but it really doesn't mean much when you consider that the 2 million units represent less than half of 1 percent of all albums sold in 2008.
Doing cartwheels about vinyl's "big comeback" is focusing on a narrow band of a large, inconvenient truth, sort of like denying global warming because Al Gore is a nerd. While the former vice president needs someone to take his lunch money and give him a wedgie, that's not really the important part.
The numbers don't stack up so nicely on close inspection. Last year's best-selling title on LP was Radiohead's In Rainbows, which mustered sales of 28,800 copies or, if you need a point of reference, the number of guys over 30 who still live with their parents and waited in line for the midnight showing of "Watchmen."
The music business is in dire straits, and not the "Money for Nothing" kind. The knee-jerk reaction to any perceived success is "let's find any shred of hope to cling onto when we can!"
While this attitude is understandable given the state of the economy, things were hard in the music business before Wall Street went bonkers.
It's been a rough decade for music sales across the board. Sales of compact discs have fallen in seven of the past eight years, down 45 percent.
The 10 best-selling records in 2008 moved one-third the amount of units the 10 best in 2000 did.
The latest sign of hard times? Virgin announced last week it is closing all of its megastores because the owners think it more profitable to lease the land than sell CDs. Closer to home, Sacramento-born Tower Records shuttered its American stores in 2006.
Few people whose pockets aren't lined by the industry want to see it succeed more than I, so reading these numbers is a punch in the face.
Still, I'm a consumer, and challenging times often lead to innovation and a certain creative willingness. In an effort to sell as much product as possible, most new titles are issued in digital, compact disc and vinyl formats. It looks really weird to have 21st century releases by M. Ward or The National sharing shelf space with Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin, but I'm not complaining.
Cool as it is, though, vinyl is the past, not the future. No matter how resurgent its sales or how pleasing its sounds, it's just not as convenient and practical a format. The modern listener is still just that -- modern. Retailers claim the No. 1 question from LP buyers is whether the purchase comes with a digital download, according to vinyl maker United Record Pressing. They want the luxury of spinning the black circle when they're able, but toting it around on the iPod for on-demand access.
It's great to see LPs make a resurgence. Still, cheering the upswing in vinyl sales is like booing Al Gore while the polar ice caps melt. Whether you think it man-made or naturally occurring, the bottom line is if that's all you see, you're missing the boat either way.