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Today we are more likely listen to our favourite band via a digital medium, such as compact disc or MP3 files, but in the 1980’s vinyl records still ruled the roost. Cassette Tapes may have been another popular and more portable media format (thanks to the invention of the Walkman) but for home use records were definitely the most popular option.
The humble record was originally invented in 1887 by Emile Berliner, taken the work done on recording sound by Thomas Edison ten years earlier and making it more accessible to the general public. Edison’s solution involved recording sound onto a cylindrical medium, which was cumbersome and hard to manufacture. The record invented by Berliner was basically a flat disc, which was much easier to mass produce, and so the music industry was born.
The first records were made of a material called shellac, which was a resin obtained from the secretions of the lac insect. Sounds disgusting if you ask me. Shellac is a natural plastic that when heated is soft and fluid, but sets hard, so was perfect for creating records. By the 1930’s the use of shellac was phased out in favour of synthetic resins.
Records were initially made to be played at 78 revolutions per minute (RPM), but this speed of rotation could lead to breakages, and it also limited the playing time of a single record, at just 5 minutes for a 12 inch disc. In 1948 technology had progressed to allow the slower 33 RPM record to be produced, allowing around 25 minutes per side. A smaller sized disc followed that played at 45 RPM which allowed the old 78 RPM records to be phased out completely, as the new format could hold the same amount of audio.
By the 1980’s the vinyl record was well established, with albums and LPs (long players) released on the 33 RPM format and singles on 45 RPM. It was always quite amusing to play records back by setting your record player to the wrong RPM setting, so you could make albums sound like they were being sung by the Smurfs, or make singles sound like they were being sung by Bernard Bresslaw.
Unfortunately for vinyl, the compact disc burst onto the market in the mid 1980’s, and vinyl was slowly phased out as CD was more robust. Vinyl records could be scratched all too easily, and they were great attractors of dust. Today vinyl still remains popular with audiophiles, as they feel it produces a truer recording of the original music (personally I can’t tell the difference, but I’m sure they’re right), and it is still popular with club DJs, since they allow some more interesting mixing techniques, the best known of which is probably scratching, the term used to describe wiggling the record back and forth whilst playing to make that odd warbly sound. No prizes for guessing why this technique earned its name!
I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.
Stacey Derbinshire
Thanks for the kind words Stacey. Hope you continue to enjoy our future posts.
[…] up with a new way of storing audio in a digital form. Prior to this music had come on pressed Vinyl Discs, a format that had been around for decades but was prone to damage and was a bit on the large […]
I was born in 1977, so I was one of the last one’s born when records were still dominant enough for me to grow up on them. Unfortunately in the mid to late 80’s cassettes gobbled up enough of record’s market that cd’s were able to squeeze them out completely by 1989- end of the 1980’s, end of records… Too bad too, I liked that I could play the records my parents had in the 1960’s, then compare them to MY records of the 1980’s… Too bad my kids can’t do the same.
I only made the move from vinyl to cassette when I moved to uni as I couldn’t carry my records with me. I still play my vinyl but have replaced most of the cassettes with CD. I also had access to a stunning collection of hard rock vinyl that my brother left behind when our delightful mother kicked him out, which warped my tastes delightfully (especially loved the covers of AC/DC records, beautifully bloody).
One thing I do miss on the transition from vinyl to CD: vinyl often had messages scratched into the edges on the centre by the bands. Especially New Order, some of which were pretty cryptic. I wrote to Peter Hook from New Order and he very kindly wrote back to me to explain what they were about. Don’t get that now….
Interesting point about the vinyl having messages scratched into the centre, Jane. That kind of thing really gives fans a much better feeling of being appreciated by the artists involved much more than any amount of sleeve notes ever could.
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My first ever vinyl LP was the Bridge of Spies Album by T’Pau….followed by Madonna/Johnny hates jazz/Martika & Belinda Carlisle.
I have recently started to collect vinyl esp. from the 80’s era and even bought myself a turntable….the 80’s hold a lot of good memories for me personally.
What do you find most appealing about collecting vinyl Jennifer? Is it because you think it sounds better, or just because the larger size of an album means you can appreciate the sleeve artwork much more than with a CD? Or is it something else?
I’m sad about the way New Order ended up, but considering they had that air of impenetrability about them in their heyday, Hooky was always quite obliging re mixing with fans. (I guess the Hacienda played its part in that.)