Vinyl - The Analogue Record in the Digital Age

Author(s): Ian Woodward

Current Affairs & Politics

Recent years have seen not just a revival, but a rebirth of the analogue record. More than merely a nostalgic craze, vinyl has become a cultural icon. As music consumption migrated to digital and online, this seemingly obsolete medium became the fastest-growing format in music sales. Whilst vinyl never ceased to be the favorite amongst many music lovers and DJs, from the late 1980s the recording industry regarded it as an outdated relic, consigned to dusty domestic corners and obscure record shops. So why is vinyl now experiencing a 'rebirth of its cool'?

Dominik Bartmanski and Ian Woodward explore this question by combining a cultural sociological approach with insights from material culture studies. Presenting vinyl as a multifaceted cultural object, they investigate the reasons behind its persistence within our technologically accelerated culture. Informed by media analysis, urban ethnography and the authors' interviews with musicians, DJs, sound engineers, record store owners, collectors and cutting-edge label chiefs from a range of metropolitan centres renowned for thriving music scenes including London, New York, Tokyo, Melbourne, and especially Berlin, what emerges is a story of a modern icon.

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Vinyl, a contemporary cultural icon, is brought to life through case studies, stories and interviews from buyers, makers, musicians and record producers across the world.

Dominik Bartmanski is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Sociology Department of Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. Ian Woodward is Associate Professor of Sociology in the School of Humanities and Deputy Director of the Centre for Cultural Research at Griffith University, Australia.

Acknowledgements Preface 1. Vinyl as Record: Several Lives of the 'King Format' 2. Medium: Handling and Hearing 3. Thing: Qualities and Entanglements 4. Commodity: Value and Markets 5. Totem: Scene-Making in Urban Spaces Epilogue: Modern Icon Notes Bibliography Index

General Fields

  • : 9780857856616
  • : Bloomsbury Academic
  • : Berg Publishers
  • : 0.454
  • : November 2014
  • : 234mm X 156mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : December 2014
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Ian Woodward
  • : Paperback
  • : Dec-14
  • : en
  • : 306.4842
  • : 256
  • : 13 bw illus