The vinyl record market collapsed in the 1980s. More than a billion LPs were sold worldwide in 1981, but by 1989 this figure had fallen by more than half to 450 million; LP sales plummeted further to 17 million in 1997 and three million in 2006. Long-cherished collections were being traded in; music retailers were sending their stocks of vinyl records to landfill.

The Compact Disc was the perfect replacement for old, scratchy, crackly pieces of plastic, things that involved so much effort to play and were a heavy lump to carry around in any numbers. In 1981, the BBC’s Tomorrow’s World programme demonstrated the durability and quality of this new space age technology by scraping the surface of the disc with a stone. They were easier to use and store, the sound quality was pristine.

Fast forward to summer 2019 and figures for vinyl sales show they are close to being the largest source of revenue from physical sales: $224.1 million for the first half of the year, compared with $247.9 million from CDs. Vinyl revenue had grown by more than 25% in the past 12 months, continuing an ongoing trend. What happened?

Most of all, technology obviously kept on evolving. In the USA, streaming makes up 80% of all music industry revenues; digital music having delivered much greater advances than the CD in quality, reliability and storage terms. The only reason consumers might still want a CD is because it’s a physical object, something that can still form part of a collection, but this is where it’s suddenly outperformed by vinyl. It’s not a case of nostalgia: vinyl records have cultural kudos as style objects; they furnish a room, they can be seen. There’s also a ritual to playing a vinyl record, placing an object on a turntable, the needle into a groove, that makes for what feels like more of an authentic listening experience. CDs simply stop working with repeated use. The Tomorrow’s World experiment would have quickly ruined the disc. Vinyl takes on character with age, the crackle and hiss, the jumps, are individual to each particular record. Digital may be perfect, but perfection can eventually become soulless and dull. Too much choice, impatient switching between tracks, can reduce the actual enjoyment of the music, to be listening in the moment.

RETURN OF THE DINOSAURS

Our research has explored the phenomenon of how the emergence of new technologies can serve to only emphasise and magnify the qualities and value of the old. Some of the characteristics of a long-extinct technology may have become relevant again now that the market ‘predator’ (the CD in the case of vinyl) has disappeared, they meet a need that was forgotten in the rush to take advantage of new features and usability.

There are important lessons here across sectors and technologies in terms of markets for reviving ‘extinct’ technologies and how the old can complement the new. Many products and technologies disappear because they have nothing useful to bring any more, there’s nothing about them to miss. But when a new product or technology starts dominating a market, it’s a good idea for strategic planners to look at what existed two or three generations before; what they gave to consumers that may have been lost and forgotten.

For example, a similar chain of events to CDs and vinyl has also occurred in the world of photography. Initially, digital cameras were the predator replacing analogue, film-based cameras; offering vast storage. Sales of single-purpose cameras fell by more than 60% over the last nine years, replaced by increasingly high-quality camera functions in smartphones and other digital devices. People were capturing images for different reasons, not so much as a record of special moments, but as an everyday stream to share via social media. What was being lost was that sense of quality over quantity, the effort to take the best possible photograph; rather than hundreds of instant snaps that no one will ever look at again. With this in mind, film-based photography is coming back via Kodak’s Ektachrome and Fujifilm’s black and while film product and Instax; not instead of smartphone pics but as a compliment.

There can be more practical reasons for the return of old technology. The streets of China’s cities were once filled with people on bicycles; these disappeared with the need for faster means of transport; but ongoing urban growth and development and accompanying congestion means these ultra-modern conurbations are once again seeing waves of bicycles. The nineteenth-century mode of transport (so effective in finding ways through the queues, and helping people with their physical wellbeing) is complemented by 21st-century tech. Digital infrastructure allows for sharing and rental of bikes as and when they’re needed.

The market also isn’t just among those with long memories, consumers who can remember the benefits of the past. Books are a good example. The main users of e-books are older; younger readers want the physical object because they want to be seen reading, and seen reading a particular title or author. There’s a whole other set of associations with a book other than gazing into a screen. And, reading a physical book is felt to be an essential way of taking a break from digital life. This is reflected in sales figures: hardcopy book sales are growing (still 80% of the market and up 8% in the last year), while interest in digital versions continues to slip, down a further 2% in 2018.

The evolution of technology, old or new, doesn’t matter. We’re never on a pathway of ‘progress’. There’s always a predominance of human needs. And, these needs change according to context and are affected by fashion. So, while vinyl may have demonstrated its powerful hold on the popular imagination of music listeners, its appeal as a practice, it doesn’t mean it won’t be replaced. There’s no reason there can’t be another object that fulfils the need for display of musical tastes and sense of cool combined with the benefits of digital delivery.

Renaud Foucart is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Economics.

Foucart, Renaud, Cheng Wan, and Shidong Wang, 'Innovations and technological comebacks’ was published in the International Journal of Research in Marketing in 2018.

r.foucart@lancaster.ac.uk