For the record: the vinyl is back

Analogue music in India is steadily growing, with both millennials and Gen Z collecting records, labels putting out albums, and even a vinyl bar now in the mix

It cannot get more ironic than this. A fortnight after Record Store Day (April 23), Apple announced that they are discontinuing the production of the iPod. That iconic gadget that changed the way we listened to, stored and shared our favourite songs, has gone silent. If anyone had kept a scorecard on May 10, it would have read Analogue: 1, Digital: 0.

While it’s true that most of us stream songs on our phones and computers, a steady stream of music lovers around the world are swapping algorithm-based music for the intimate and tangible joy of the vinyl. The format that rode high in the 70s, had dipped in the 90s and almost disappeared with the arrival of the new millennium. It should have gone extinct, à la the iPod, but that’s where it gets curious. Stacked away in shelves and dusty corners of antique shops, the vinyl managed to stay alive until, sometime in the past decade, curious millennials began digging up records that reminded them of summer holidays spent with the grandparents, a gramophone playing in the background.

What started off as a silent wave is now in high gear — the pandemic years, in fact, have accelerated it. According to reports, 2020 was the first year since the 80s when vinyl records sold more than CDs, and last year it broke more records: in the U.S., sales hit $1 billion, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, while a New Musical Express report states that over five million vinyl records were sold in the U.K. In India, sales may not be making headlines, but vinyl heads are most definitely clued in and keeping pace with the trend.

“The current generation is looking to make a deeper connection with things because, owing to the way social media or the algorithms are programmed, we are unable to connect with anything we love,” says Nehal Shah. For the co-founder and director of Mumbai-based India Record Co., the vacuum created by our hyper-digital lives is best filled by the analogue way of life vinyl promotes. “It places music in the foreground rather than in the background. You are listening to the whole album uninterrupted. There are no screens to stare at, no ads, no shuffling or skipping of songs. You can’t talk over the music and it affords you that one or two hours of absolute me-time,” she says. “This is probably why more and more youngsters are getting attached to vinyl and respecting it than those who are in their 50s and 60s.”

Delhi-based Nishant Mittal is one such youngster. “I was probably 19 when I bought my first record. Within the next couple of years, I had collected over a hundred, and I didn’t even have a record player till then,” he says over email. Today, the 26-year-old collector, archivist and DJ runs the popular Instagram handle @digginginindia, where he doles out trivia and anecdotes about well-known and obscure Indian and international records that he owns or knows of.

Mittal has managed to create a community of his own where people of all ages look up to him for information related to vinyl.

Digital is the default mode for musicians today, but lately, quite a few artistes, including big ticket names like Adele, Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, and Weeknd have cut their albums on vinyl. In India too, a few indie artistes and bands have pressed records, with more slated to join the list.