The Vinyl Revival

Over the last few years, the "slow living" movement has opened new doors for people. Whereas in the past they only thought about work, now people know how to slow things down and remember the good times of the past in order to relax. In this nostalgia boom, retailers have seen considerable growth in the market for traditional LP records. The "vinyl fever" of half a century ago is making a comeback, with a flood of second-hand records and new pressings on the market.

For sure, the LP makes the listener put aside the usual hustle and bustle--you have to sit down and listen to the songs in order, one by one. It's not like listening to a CD, where you can skip tracks at will, and it's not like an MP3 player that you can hang on your neck and listen to as you walk. It's no wonder that some people insist that only vinyl will give you the feeling that music is the center of the universe.

Vinyl revival

Put another way, in this digital age music is thought of as something you can share online--just another kind of data. But with single MP3 files, which are so easily copied and spread, music fans often lose the meaning and background of the whole album. Record covers and liner notes are also being forgotten.

In order to let music fans get a taste of the pleasures of the old vinyl experience, Eslite Bookstore's Tunhua South Road, Taipei, branch held a "Vinyl Revival" event in March. Five thousand rock, classical, jazz, electronica, oldies, and underground indie records were on display for music fans to peruse.

Eslite was not the only one. Taiwan's first publicly traded record company, Jingo Records, also entered the vinyl market this year. Jingo chief Chen Chien-yu sent employees to America to buy up new and used vinyl and bring it back to Taiwan. In just a few months, they had collected 150,000 records and put them up for sale in a newly opened shop. That shop is now Taiwan's largest vinyl retailer.

Hsiao Sung Records, in the electronics section of Taipei's Hsining Market, is a venerable used vinyl merchant. "The market for analog audio is heating up," says the proprietor, Sung Wei-lun. Chen Chien-yu also points out an odd phenomenon--as digital MP3s become more and more common, the future for vinyl looks better and better.

Sung says that Taiwan's vinyl market went into decline in 1989 as CDs moved in. But vinyl has been making a comeback in recent years--for example, 200 high- quality record players costing NT$20,000 or more are still sold each year. Also, a scene in the hit Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs set in a stereo store ignited discussion among young music fans and made audiences long for top-shelf audio equipment. Even home shopping channels are riding the wave of interest, selling sets of analog stereo equipment that use vacuum tubes. "After 20 years, vinyl is making its move and hitting back," says Sung.

Some music fans insist that only vinyl gives an all-encompassing listening experience. Pictured is Jingo's record store on Taipei's Chungshan North Road.

Reprint, repressing

According to a long-term Jingo employee who goes by the name of Steven, in actuality vinyl never really went away as many major international labels have continued to release artists' albums in the LP format. Diana Krall's 2004 The Girl in the Other Room, Norah Jones' Come Away with Me, and Ray Charles' last album, the Grammy-winning Genius Loves Company for example were all released on LP at the same time as on CD.

Taiwan's long-dormant record presses have been starting up again as well. Record companies are releasing repressings of albums by well-known artists like Teresa Teng, Tsai Chin, Fei Yu-ching, and Luo Shih-feng to the delight of fans.

The vinyl market consists mainly of the buying and selling of used records and the repressing of previously released albums, but sometimes the latter are newly remastered. Some vinyl enthusiasts, however, believe that remasters are of lower quality and do not match the quality of the "golden era" of vinyl. The argument is that just as reprints from film developed years ago will suffer in quality so will remasters. Perhaps it is due to the insistence of these loyalists that Taiwan's domestic LP market is oriented toward traditional pressings. There are also more varieties of music available in traditional pressings.

As for the price, new pressings are the most expensive, running up to NT$1000 for an LP. Prices for used records vary widely, and first editions are worth more than later ones. They run anywhere from NT$500 to the tens of thousands. Mandarin-language oldies tend to be cheaper but are rarer. The increase in the number of collectors in recent years has meant that prices have been rising, and even if you have the money you might not be able to locate a copy of a certain record.

It's been a long time since the era of 78-rpm records, but they still have a place in the hearts of some music fans. The rudimentary sounds touch them from across the years.

Hsin-hsin Records

Before the vinyl revival, there were still many music fans who never lost their passion for vinyl. They'd buy LPs at flea markets and tiny second-hand shops where they'd meet with like-minded individuals, or they'd bid for classic albums in online auctions.

How many LP listeners are there in Taiwan? Vinyl enthusiasts find it hard to answer this question. Sung, who's been in the business for ten years, estimates that the number is currently around 30,000, and that they are of the elite. His observation has been that his customers tend to be mostly university professors with money, free time, and taste. Next are doctors, musicians, and IT professionals.

Sung says there are three types of LP buyers. First, there are those around 50 years old nostalgic for their youths. Then, there are music lovers who can't find what they are looking for on CD so search for it on vinyl. Finally, there are audiophiles who are passionate about analog sound. There are also others who are drawn in by the album art or the detailed liner notes.

Performance Workshop Theatre director Stan Lai is the prototypical vinyl enthusiast. He's been collecting records for over 30 years and has more than 10,000. Before he started his theater troupe, he hosted a jazz show on BCC radio. Not only is he one of Taiwan's biggest promoters of jazz music, he's also one of its best blues singers.

How did he come to love records? Lai says, "This has a lot to do with how I grew up. I grew up in the 1960s, when most young people were into rock. I was an avid collector of rock records up until hard rock and heavy metal started to develop in the 1970s."

He remembers those days: "At that time, an album went for about NT$5. As students, we didn't have a lot of money so we would go to the cheapest places in the Chunghua Market, especially one called Hsin-hsin Records. All the students knew about one female employee there who was really cool and good-looking. In the early days you could listen to records before you bought them. As soon as a student would walk in, she'd slip a record out of its sleeve and with her expert hand put the needle on the track she thought would best get your attention. After letting you listen for five or six seconds, she'd take it off and ask if you wanted it. It was simple and quick, and amazing."

"I found it!" Music fans in Hsiao Sung Records search for treasures.

Collector's obsession

Chen Chun-lu, who runs the photography studio Zone Five, is also a vinyl fan. His love of records goes back to his childhood. His family had a record player, and his father would often play records by Taiwanese-language artists like Wen Hsia, Hung Yi-feng, and Chi Lu-hsia. Chen would learn how to sing from the records and would often perform at school, which earned him the nickname "the little song king." His pleasant memories of his youth are like a key that unlocks his love of music.

At first, Chen listened to regular CDs. He only fell in love with vinyl records later and began collecting all kinds of old LPs. He bids in online auctions, spending NT$40-50,000 a month. He spends so much money on them that his wife often scolds him about his vinyl habit.

Chen's favorite, it ends up, is old 78-rpm records--the kind you play with a player with a big sound horn on top. He buys a lot of 78s put out by EMI in the 1930s by artists such as Zhou Xuan, Bai Guang, and Li Xianglan. Original 78s only have two songs, one per side, and cost around NT$2000 each. That's six to seven times the price of most second-hand records. A 1937 recording of Zhou Xuan's "When Will You Come Back?" was going for NT$12,000, and he bought it with no hesitation.

To listen to these treasured old records, Chen bought an old phonograph for NT$100,000 from America. He found himself lost in the primitive old sounds. The 51-year-old Chen says that though he wasn't even born in those days, the rudimentary sound of the old songs gives him a feeling of closeness despite their distance in time. To him, it's a beautiful feeling.

Photographic artist Chen Chun-lu seeks perfection in the visual and the aural. His home in Ilan is filled with records of music that is close to his heart despite its age.

Vinyl world

Some people think that since vinyl has lost most of its market share, it must be difficult to collect it. Actually, records aren't as scarce as most people think. There are still plenty of record stores in Europe, America, and Japan with amazing selections. Jingo's ability to snap up 150,000 records in such a short time is testament to that fact.

Sung also says that he not only has students studying abroad pick up records for him but also travels twice a year to go record shopping in foreign countries. He says with a smile that record stores in Europe and America shouldn't be called "stores," they should be called "record wholesalers." In addition to the records on display in the shops, they have huge warehouses as well. Sung says he's been to a seven-story warehouse filled with records that you could spend a week in and not see it all. The weather in Europe and America is drier, he explains, so records can sit for a long time without getting moldy.

Former Chunghua Books editor in chief Chung Fang-ling, who knows European and American bookstores well, has another idea about records.

Chung says that the second-hand bookstores she goes to in Europe and America often have a considerable number of records for sale as well, and that record collectors and book collectors have a lot in common. Once she was in Mill Valley, a small town in the Silicon Valley about 15 minutes by car from San Francisco, where she ran across a used record store called Village Music. Only later did she realize how famous it was, with a clientele that includes stars such as Mick Jagger, Linda Ronstadt, and George Lucas. Its renown is all due to its huge selection and unique atmosphere.

Good sounds never fade away, and the charms of vinyl are not forgotten. Those who know them can reminisce, and those who don't have a new world of sound to explore.