Why buy vinyl?

A recent post on the Matador Records Blog discusses why it is that people are buying vinyl more frequently even though at one point it was considered more or less a “dead” format and that analog versions of digital recordings make no difference in quality. Transferring something recording digitally onto an analog format will still result in digital quality. However this post discusses that the sale is due to trends – now vinyls come in limited edition colors, expensive picture discs and many bands will press vinyl exclusives for especially dedicated fans. Time wrote this article which further explains the phenomenon and why it’s taking place. Reasons listed include poor quality of sound on iPods and the increase of the practice of including free download cards with vinyl, eliminating the “choice” of owning digital or physical copies for people who buy LPs.
One of the best and most recent examples of this was by the Brookyln based Red Leader Records. The picture disc features four of their most popular bands featuring covers of songs by bands such as Built To Spill, Superchunk, The Carter Family, and The Mountain Goats.