Why Vinyl Can't Survive

A few months ago I finished a mini-marathon set at my local residency. It was the first time I'd used Serato Scratch and my PowerBook for a show. Afterward, some friends and I were having a drink and the conversation steered toward my set. Now I'm not going to lie. I was proud of what I'd played - four hours of new releases and promos I'd never spun before. I thought it was the perfect way to break in my new digital toy, playing on all of its strengths, but nobody asked me about the tracks or the artists. In fact, nobody commented on music at all. They didn't care. Instead, I was scolded and branded a traitor for my choice to go digital. I spent over an hour defending my corner, but to little avail. My friends remained staunch in their attack on the pariah at the table.

Now I've played enough shows with enough DJs to know that digital isn't a flash in the pan. Most of the jocks that come through here are already playing most of their tracks from CDs, and more are starting to show up with laptop in tow. Despite the trend, my friends stay true to vinyl, and are quick to tell you it isn't going anywhere. Now, I love my friends. They are nice, intelligent people, but their devotion to a dying format has gone from cute and naïve to just plain dense. The writing is on the wall, and for those in the cheap seats, it reads "Vinyl can't win so just give it up already." Harsh? Maybe. Sudden? Not if you've been paying attention. Absolutely true? You know it, or at least you should.

Like Marshall McLuhan said in the sixties, the medium is the message. It's the nature of the medium itself, rather than the information disseminated by it, that has the greater influence on society. It was radical idea at the time, but forty years later, it's still being taught in classrooms.

If McLuhan were still alive, he'd love the vinyl/digital debate (but who wouldn't love any issue that makes you look prophetic?) As more and more DJs, labels and shops jump on board the digital bandwagon, the future of the DJ is being defined by the technology, not the music. As with any movement, there is a resistance, but the vinyl purists' battle in defense of records is rapidly losing ground.