DOI: 10.1111/jpms.

12247

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Analog backlog: Pressing records during

the vinyl revival
Michael Palm

University of North Carolina

Abstract
After sustained growth for over a decade among independent record
labels and retail outlets, major labels and chain stores embraced vinyl
records as a growth sector, and for the first time in half a century,
demand began outpacing supply. In this essay, I analyze recent trends
of vinyl traffic and critique a prominent feature of contemporary
vinyl culture: Record Store Day. The annual holiday has boosted vinyl
sales while become an inflationary engine driving up costs, which
alongside sales have skyrocketed since the turn of the century. At
stake is a sustainable supply chain for recorded popular music that
is not beholden to online access to digitized content and that can
thrive outside the grip of corporate retail machinery. I describe how
pressing plants and independent labels are coping with the surge in
demand for vinyl records, and to conclude I suggest how support-
ers and scholars of independent music can more effectively com-
bat corporate control by decoupling it from digitization as two dis-
tinct phenomena. For lovers as well as makers of independent music,
the major labels' reembrace of an analog format like vinyl can be as
threatening as the corporate stranglehold on digital distribution.

Stories about vinyl tend to begin at the point of sale. Record stores, dance floors, and even collectors' crates are more
accessible than pressing plants and distribution warehouses, and I see several benefits of studying the contemporary
manufacture of records. Most immediately, after sustained growth among independent labels and outlets for over a
decade, major labels and chain stores predictably embraced records as a growth sector and began ratcheting up their
orders with no concern for stability. For the first time in 50 years, supply stopped keeping pace with demand, and pro-
duction continues to bottleneck along the vinyl supply chain. Back orders and delays have become expected, especially
for independent labels and shops, as pressing plants scramble to fill bigger orders first. Independent manufacturers and
distributors as well as labels and retailers are addressing the new pressure points along vinyl's supply chain, and docu-
menting their strategies and tactics may help generate and circulate ideas about how record makers can weather the
next swing(s) in vinyl's fortunes as a popular format. More broadly, in light of the outsized attention vinyl receives as a
retro trend, (e.g., Halpern, 2011; O'Hagen, 2011; Imperfect Pleasures, n.d.) any lessons learned about the manufacture
of records could prove illustrative for independent artists and makers working in other media with commercial produc-
tion practices similarly vulnerable to shifts in taste and the fickle corporate (and popular) embrace of niche cultures.

J. Pop. Music Stud. 2017;29:e12247. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jpms 

c 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 1 of 14
https://doi.org/10.1111/jpms.12247
2 of 14 PALM

Scholars of popular music can also learn from listening to record makers along the supply chain as well as in the
studio. The career of vinyl is well documented; recent monographs have analyzed records' aesthetic appeal (Osborne,
2014) and the subcultures developed therein (Bartmanski & Woodward, 2015). Mark Katz (2012) helped legitimize
records as a technology of cultural production, namely, for their appropriation by DJs, who flipped them (along with
turntables) into musical instruments. Less scholarly attention has been paid to records' physical production. The swift
establishment of terms like “digital labor” within media studies highlights the need to document production processes
that have yet to—or, in the case of records, cannot—undergo digitization. In addition to providing a supply-side account
of vinyl's revived popularity, documenting the contemporary manufacture of records can help interrogate “the digital”
as our contemporary condition. New media do not automatically supersede their predecessors, and records are a case
of “residual media” being experienced today in new ways as well as old (Davis, 2007; Rietveld, 2007). A linear history
relegates analog enthusiasts young and old to marginal status as hipsters or holdouts; conversely, no one along the
vinyl supply chain any longer assumes a “zero sum game” among formats. The ascent of streaming is universally rec-
ognized as having “affected physical sales in a positive way,” creating both and markets for what Raymond Williams
distinguished as “flow” and “publication” media (Taylor, 2017; see also Trammell, 2016). The compatibility of vinyl and
streaming highlights the need for scholars of popular music to employ suppler distinctions than analog versus digital.
Stuart Hall's coauthored book about the Sony Walkman is a formative example of “doing cultural studies” of tech-
nology (du Gay et al., 1997). Hall et al. focused their study of the Walkman on the “circuits of culture” among its mutu-
ally constitutive aspects of production, consumption, regulation, representation, and identity. The impetus for map-
ping a comprehensive framework stemmed from their conviction that such a radically contextualized analysis in neces-
sary in order to understand the personal investments and political stakes of popular culture. Like the Walkman during
the 1980s, vinyl records today are a “cultural artifact” that can “give us insight into the shared meanings and social
practices—the distinctive ways of making sense and doing things—which are the basis of our culture” (du Gay et al.,
1997, p. 11). More pointedly, vinyl studies today echo Hall et al.'s concern with “contemporary soundscapes” as a vital
aspect of popular culture and everyday life (du Gay et al., 1997, p. 18). In many ways, the revived popularity of records
suggests a reaction against trends in “mobile privatization” and convenience that the Walkman catalyzed (Williams,
2003). Now portable music players have been subsumed into smart phones; and for consumers, the acquisition of cul-
tural goods has largely given way to online services organizing access to digitized content. Yet nostalgia is not the only
motivating factor for vinyl's revival. Many young people embrace “vinyls” as a reprieve from digital saturation, a sort of
divergence culture (to twist Henry Jenkins' (2006) canonized formulation).
One upshot of Hall et al.'s framework is that focusing on one node can spark insights into the others via the “cir-
cuits” between them. Journalists as well as scholars have addressed records' appeal, from their purportedly warmer
sound to cover art, liner notes, and paratext. Appreciations like these touch on three nodes in vinyl's circuits of culture—
consumption, representation, and identity. Scrutiny of record manufacturing reveals noteworthy connections between
production and not only consumption but representation and identity as well. For instance, during vinyl's nadir several
pressing plants stayed open because hip hop and dance music producers embraced 12” records as their format of choice
(Flanagan, 2014; Rietveld, 2007, p. 100). Vinyl's allure was practical and economic as well as aesthetic (and tactile): not
only could producers and DJs easily accumulate cheap, old records to sample, but the reduced traffic in pressing plants
also meant that hot tracks could hit the club at low cost and with minimal delay. Musical subcultures can be exclusionary
along lines of race, gender, sexuality, class, and age; and those organized around vinyl records today are no exception.
Vinyl enthusiasts (myself included) would be well served to recall the vital role that records played in the formation of
these interracial, majority-minority, and often queer-friendly subcultures. During vinyl's “bad old days,” affordability
and accessibility stemming from the format's lack of popularity helped make it the medium of choice for underground
cultures, emergent genres, and marginalized musical communities. The vinyl vogue today stems in part from its exclusiv-
ity, with high cultural as well as economic and technological barriers to entry. Historicizing records' production along-
side their consumption, and tracing the circuits of culture therein, can amplify the significance of form(at) as well as
content in establishing the patterns of inclusion and exclusion that comprise any cultural community.
Hall et al. riff on Walter Benjamin's (1936) famous essay to consider the Walkman and/as “culture in the age of elec-
tronic reproduction” (p. 21). Keeping with a time-honored tradition, I stretch Benjamin's title further still to address
PALM 3 of 14

analog cultural production in the age of digital reproduction. Feedback loops between contemporary vinyl culture and
digital media abound: the download code is a familiar feature of new vinyl releases, the majority of sales occur online,
and turntables outfitted with USB cables are outselling traditional models (Nickson, 2009). The fact remains, how-
ever, that scarcely any of records' production can be digitized. (Some controls and collation have been digitized, but
the physical creation of records cannot be. Experiments with the first 3D printed records have begun to bear fruit, but
material and aural limitations as well as economies of scale render the digital production of records, at this point, a
distant vision.) (Makerbot, 2011; Ullanof, 2013). Pressing records involves arduous craft labor and old-school manu-
facturing. The production process entails raw pellets of vinyl being melted into pucks and then pressed into discs. The
plants are loud, the machinery massive, and the actual pressing is downright violent, with more than a hundred tons
of pressure applied to flatten the pucks symmetrically. Record presses also contain moving parts that are constantly
shifting, and the slightest misalignment can halt production for hours if not days. A single screw breaking can cause a
pressing plant to “spen[d] $5,000 to manufacture and install a new one” (Sisario, 2015). All inspection and quality con-
trol is conducted aurally and manually; even the final insertions into sleeves and covers are done by hand. The process
of making records remains essentially the same as it was in 1960. (In 1972, United Record Pressing in Nashville was
the first plant to automate its manual presses, making them far safer and less prone to malfunction, but the pressing
process remains the same. These automated presses were designed by United cofounder and mainstay Ozell Simpkins
and are still in use today.) (McCall, 1999). The pressing process is also identical for one copy or a million, although of
course profit margins are not. Accordingly, any discussion of contemporary record pressing should be contextualized
within vinyl's history and political economy.
In what follows, I outline some trends and patterns of vinyl traffic today, before discussing a prominent feature of
contemporary vinyl culture: Record Store Day (RSD). The new annual holiday deserves its share of credit for boost-
ing vinyl sales; however, it has become an inflationary engine driving up costs, which alongside sales have skyrocketed
since the turn of the century. Along the way, I draw on industry and company statistics as well as a motley crew of
independent record pressers, distributors, shop owners, and online merchants, and self-described “label guys.” (I've
heard Christopher J. Smith of Paradise of Bachelors self-deprecatingly refer to himself as a label guy, as in “I can't
believe I'm a label guy now.” Smith and his mate Brendan Greaves are among a score of sources, give or take, inform-
ing a current book project documenting and analyzing the contemporary supply chain for vinyl records. Several are
quoted below. It is worth noting that “label guy” is indicative of the extent to which contemporary vinyl cultures of
vinyl records are dominated by men.) In the third and final section, I describe how pressing plants and independent
labels are coping with the surge in demand for vinyl records. The number of pressing plants has plummeted since
1990, and presses abandoned 20 years ago are now being renovated or salvaged. New plants starting up or old ones
expanding capacity, however, do so while facing a future for vinyl at risk of becoming as volatile as the format's past.
Some independent labels have capitalized on profits from vinyl's revival to invest in their own pressing plants. By ver-
tically integrating their production, these labels are forging a more sustainable supply chain for records that can thrive
if and when “the vinyl bubble” pops (“Collateral damage,” 2013), To conclude, I take a lesson from these labels and
suggest that supporters and scholars of independent music can more effectively combat corporatization by decou-
pling it from digitization as two distinct phenomena. It is tempting to assume they proceed hand-in-hand, yet the
contemporary political economy of vinyl records—analog format par excellence—demonstrates how digital media can
play a vital role in any community organized around a shared appreciation for cultural forms and formats, analog or
otherwise.

1 THE VINYL BUBBLE

Throughout the 1980s record sales plummeted, from over 200 million to less than 70 million, as vinyl lost market share
to cassette tapes and then more dramatically to CDs. By the end of the 1980s, many music stores had removed records
from their shelves entirely. During the 1990s most pressing plants were retrofitted to stamp CDs, sold for parts, or
simply shuttered. In 1993, a mere 300,000 new records were sold in the United States. In 2015, United Record Pressing
4 of 14 PALM

FIGURE 1 No New Customers…?! [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

in Nashville claimed to have churned out 30 million platters. (The claim is impossible to verify, although several “label
guys” found the figure reasonable, given factors such as major label stockpiling of future releases and overestimates
for sales, as well as the fact that records pressed annually will exceed sales figures due to double LPs, box sets, etc.)
The world's second-busiest plant by volume, and the most storied, United recently doubled its capacity. For over a year
while its new presses were coming online, from 2014 to March, 2016, United ceased taking orders from new customers
due to overwhelming demand (see Figure 1).
By the turn of the twenty-first century, vinyl sales had climbed back up to a million per year, an increase of fivefold
from a decade earlier. In 2012, over 4.5 million records were sold, an annual leap of 17%. Since then vinyl's comeback
has continued to intensify, with sales up over 30% each year (Ulloa, 2013). Also, 2014 was the first year since the intro-
duction of iTunes, in 2003, that sales of digital music dipped. Vinyl sales were up 52% in 2014, while digital sales were
down 9.5%. (Although the dip in digital sales is due to the ascent of streaming, not increased physical sales. See Bill-
board Staff, 2015.) By Christmas 2016, record sales surpassed digital sales in the U.K. (Ellis-Petersen, 2016). As the
high-end British music magazine Wire put it: “Vinyl's violent sales spike has been a lonely bright spot in what [is now]
a 1[5] year deterioration in sales of recorded music” (“Collateral damage,” 2013). Many new record jackets do not fea-
ture bar codes, an absence that renders sales more difficult to track. Furthermore, the rosy sales figures reflect only
new record sales; used vinyl sustains thriving markets online and in record stores, as well as thrift shops, flea markets,
and the like. Suffice it to say that despite vinyl's near-death experience during the dawn of digital music, today the for-
mat is understood as here to stay, and its resiliency is evidence that commercial popular culture need not be limited to
online access to digitized content.
As significant as vinyl's climbing sales are the venues where records are being sold. Retail chain stores like Urban
Outfitters and even Whole Foods have taken to stocking records, and the former sold over 8% of all new albums in the
United States in 2014, trailing only Amazon. However, independent merchants sell over two-thirds of new vinyl as well
as virtually all used records (Billboard Staff, 2015). Countless record stores have been shuttered as distributers, retail-
ers, and collectors move their business online, but business-savvy and community-minded proprietors use the Inter-
net to subsidize their brick-and-mortar shops. Plenty of successful storeowners began selling records online and later
opened a shop for any number of reasons, from vanity to storage capacity. (In North Carolina's research triangle, where
I live, at least two record stores fit this description: All Day Records in Carrboro and Carolina Soul in Durham, which
opened in 2010 and 2015, respectively.) The Internet has not killed the record store as a local, independent cultural
PALM 5 of 14

institution any more than the CD or mp3 extinguished vinyl. Inside record shops today, as the Wire column (“Collateral
damage,” 2013) put it, “[g]oodwill abounds, but among the racks, crowded with product and punters, there's more than
a whiff of irrational exuberance.” This exuberance surrounds what the founders of Numero Group, an archival record
label based in Chicago, have dubbed “the vinyl bubble.” The image of a bubble economy is a familiar one, from tulips to
tech, and in the case of vinyl it describes a market in which the average price for a record in the United States is now
$25—more than twice the average cost of an album download or basic monthly streaming subscription. Records accu-
mulate more “sentimental surplus value” than digital music formats, and many shoppers expect “through arbitrage of
some sort, to net a profit on the item, or at least enjoy declaring to friends what the purchase's maximum eBay value
might be” (Meltzer, 2000, p. 300; “Collateral damage,” 2013). Crate digging, in other words, is a form of bargain hunting
that Veblen (1899) would have also recognized as a mode of conspicuous consumption. Even casual collectors revel in
finding records priced below their value, and flipping records online has become a reliable revenue stream for some
intrepid collectors, from students to vertically integrated transnational companies. (In several instances, the former
have developed (into) the latter.)
Vinyl sales have long been propelled by a fanboy culture and a collector ethos. Labels milk as well as cater to both
with deluxe reissues and box sets featuring all sorts of bells and whistles, and today these extravagancies are pushing
the envelope of what will be accepted as a record's price tag. After diagnosing the vinyl bubble in The Wire, Numero
Group prescribes a common sense solution:

The vinyl marketplace is probably permanently contracted, but rather than over-serving the superfan, it should
pivot toward super-serving the casual fan. Anyone should be able to walk into any record store in the world and
buy a standard vinyl copy of Nevermind for a reasonable price, rather than [or at least in addition to] confronting
the 180-gram pressing or the deluxe quadruple LP that fishes for their cash from a lofty wall display.

Of course, the deluxe and the standard are not mutually exclusive, and proceeds from the box sets can offset more
reasonably priced releases of the same music (and vice versa). A risk during the vinyl bubble is the deluxe crowding out
the standard, and with it many people who buy records or would like to begin.
In Record Collector News, shop owner Colin Tappe (2013) analyzed “the rising cost of vinyl” in terms consistent with
Numero Group's call for a pivot from super fans toward casual fans. Tappe (2013) adds a nod to the youth market
by reminding us “the ancient craft of taking your allowance to the record store and seeing how far you can stretch
it is alive and well.” His prescription for deflating rather than popping the vinyl bubble is for corporate labels to take
a lesson from their indie counterparts, such as SST in LA and Dischord in D.C., who on principle “stick to the $7–$8
wholesale price on their full length” albums, which allows “retailers … to make [their] mark up while keeping the records
at a reasonable price…. Customer, retailer, distributor and label all work together harmoniously” within a business
model that is, in Tappe's experience (as well as my own), not only “ethical and sustainable,” but “fun” (Tappe, 2013). One
variable missing from Tappe's formula is manufacturing. Now that major labels have (re)turned to records as a revenue
stream, some independent labels have started to build production delays into their timetables for new releases. “The
problem that independent labels are facing is that some of the bigger plants might get an order for an Eagles box set, and
everyone else is put on hold” (Sisario, 2015). As major labels continue to up their orders and inflate the vinyl bubble, the
production bottleneck tightens inside pressing plants, where independent artists and labels with small-batch orders
risk being pushed aside.
*
Skeptics of vinyl's comeback contend that sales figures do not reflect a customer base that has expanded or evolved;
rather, the counterargument goes, music labels and outlets have resumed catering to the same shoppers who used to
buy records back in the day. One critic found it “hard to shake the feeling that the labels are trying to sell their archive
a third time” by targeting “middle-aged buyers who can remember buying vinyl, naturally switched over to the CD,
sold or threw away their old vinyl and aren't completely happy with streaming today” (Herrmann, 2015). Putting a
finer demographic point on it, vinyl remains the only music format for which “rock – the preserve, largely, of the older,
wealthier [white, male] buyer – is king” (Hann, 2014). In 2012, David Bowie and Pink Floyd reascended the British
charts with repackaged 70s classics. Meanwhile, Abbey Road was the second-highest selling vinyl record in the United
6 of 14 PALM

States. In 2015, all 10 of the highest-selling records in the U.K. were rock albums, including seven reissues (Pink Floyd
again, along with Stone Roses, Oasis, and four by Led Zeppelin). From this angle, it seems the pool of vinyl buyers is being
refilled rather than expanded, “now [that] record companies are making a bit more of an effort to meet the desires” of
music consumers who (again) fancy rock records over compact discs and downloads, namely, older white guys with
disposable income (Hann, 2014).
Rock music was inexorably tied to the rise of 12″ record. To rehash a well-worn tale: after “concept albums”
like the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds and the Beatles' later offerings catapulted pop music into the realm of art, full-
length LPs joined 7″ singles as a viable format for mass sales. Scarcely a decade later, vinyl sales began to plum-
met as consumers flocked to cassette tapes and then compact discs. Meanwhile, vinyl's hidden (supply-side) his-
tory is that, throughout the 1980s and 1990s, as records were being banished from the shelves of music retailers,
newly pressed records still found their way into jukeboxes, radio stations, and—increasingly—DJs' crates. “[D]ancing
to records was initially a sign of poverty, a taste [born] of necessity” before becoming “a sign of distinction” (Rietveld,
2007, p. 100). During vinyl's bad old days, dance and hip hop records could sustain an independent pressing plant.
For instance, United in Nashville pressed a trove of gold and platinum classics during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s,
singles as well as albums (most famously Motown, but also the Beatles' first US pressing); then, for the following
three decades, United's plant was “structured for 12-inch singles” popular among hip hop and dance music DJs.
Only in 2007 did United “shift to the LP market” (Flanagan, 2014). Vinyl sales today increasingly resemble classic
rock's 1970s AOR heyday; indeed, in many cases the very same albums are again topping the physical sales charts.
The corporate takeover of rock records is threatening to repeat itself. (First as farce, now as tragedy?) In rock's
substantial historical shadow, it is easy to overlook how rap and dance music communities developed sustainable vinyl
cultures.
Major label reissues of classic rock albums comprise a substantial portion of vinyl sales today. Fortunately, reis-
sues are a growing market in terms of range as well as volume, as independent labels compete to secure the rights for
curiosities and overlooked gems from an expansive array of genres and periods. Some, like Numero Group, are essen-
tially archivists finding audiences for music underappreciated upon its initial release. The catalogs of other labels—
such as Fat Possum in Oxford, Mississippi, and Paradise of Bachelors in Chapel Hill, North Carolina—feature similar
reissues alongside new records by experimental and traditional artists. Some labels lavishly “curate” their reissues;
many Paradise of Bachelors reissues include a large color booklet featuring contemporary essays or interviews along-
side archival photos and ephemera. Independent labels also often have to recoup the substantial costs of purchasing
reproduction rights for master recordings, no matter how obscure or forgotten, especially if they are still owned by
major labels or their subsidiaries. Independent reissue labels are widening their search for marginalized music wor-
thy of rediscovery, and listeners have proven willing to pay for the fruits of these labor- and often resource-intensive
projects. During the first decade of the new millennium, a wave of independent labels earned modest profits and much
acclaim by reissuing albums and compiling box sets documenting pioneering musicians across any number of genres.
Since then reissues have become a mainstream trend, and a “major-label cycle of endless reboots,” especially for clas-
sic rock staples, has driven up prices as well as sales (Haver Currin, 2014). Major labels often reissue music still widely
available in many formats, including used vinyl, not to mention up and down the FM dial. Numero Group cofounder
Rob Sevier (personal communication, May 25, 2015) captures the sense of fatigue among reissue labels facing a crush
of corporate imitators: “I don't have a problem with remastered Led Zeppelin albums; it's the fourth-best REO Speed-
wagon album that gets me.”
Reissues have become a double-edged sword: rediscovered rarities and recycled classics both sell, often at prices
that reinforce vinyl lovers' reputation as an exclusive club with high economic as well as cultural and technological bar-
riers to entry. (For fictional accounts of vinyl communities and their cultural politics, see Chabon, 2012; Hornby, 1996.
For scholarly accounts informed by ethnographic research, see Bartmanski & Woodward, 2015; Katz, 2012; Rietveld,
2007; Rose, 1994.) Independent labels (by and large) continue to make appropriate and sustainable use of vinyl as a
format for music new and old, but major label reissues of rock albums, which originally established the 12″ record as
a mass format, are again becoming vinyl's commercial center of gravity. As the next section elaborates, the centripetal
PALM 7 of 14

force of rock reissues builds every winter and spring until the third Saturday in April, RSD, a new solstice on popular
music's commercial calendar.

2 VINYL HOLIDAY

The effect of RSD on vinyl rivals Valentine's Day for flowers and Halloween for candy: in 2015, record sales in stores
(excluding online sales) were more than 600% higher on April 18th than on April 11th (“Here are this year's…,” 2015).
Cooked up by owners of independent record stores in 2007 and overseen today by the Coalition of Independent Music
Stores and the Alliance of Independent Media Stores, RSD enjoyed an acute ascent: between 2011 and 2014, overall
music sales the week of RSD were more than 100% higher than the previous year, and the effect is more pronounced
for vinyl than for all other formats combined. In 2014, over a third of all albums sold during the week of RSD were vinyl;
and of those more than four-fifths were sold at independent stores (“Record Store Day drives…,” 2013). In the past
decade, RSD has done more than any other event, organization, or individual to elevate the sales and profile of vinyl
records.
Shop owners appreciate the business, but many have come to view the holiday as a necessary evil. In Washington,
DC, the remaining handful of independent record stores have clustered along 18th Street. Staff at the indie stalwart
Crooked Beat work extra shifts to stock special releases, which they display right next to a bin of marked down leftovers
from previous years. A few doors to the north, the owners of Smash!, a vintage clothing boutique with a few crates of
used records in the back, stock RSD releases that exude the store's punk-rock aesthetic. In North Carolina's research
triangle, Ethan Clauset (personal communication, December 11, 2014), coowner of All Day Records, a shop selling new
and used vinyl with a thriving online business, explains his RSD strategy in crystalline terms: “how much of this crap do
I need to buy to entice people to come in?” Major labels have colonized the event and adopted its rhetoric of indepen-
dence as a pernicious marketing ploy. RSD's Wikipedia entry acknowledges, in a segment on “impact,” that major labels
“have been accused of hijacking the event” (Impact, n.d.). A severe economy of scale for vinyl's production means that
pressing plants increasingly delay small-batch runs in order to accommodate mass orders from major labels, especially
during the annual run-up to RSD.
In the most sustained analysis of RSD to date, Eric Harvey describes how its promoters hype the holiday by char-
acterizing patronage of independent record stores as an “ethical decision” (2015, p. 1). Drawing on Lizabeth Cohen's
(2003) historical account of the “citizen-consumer” in postwar America and Sarah Banet-Wiser's (2012) concept of
“ambivalent brand cultures,” Harvey unpacks how RSD, Inc. lionizes “local record stores as temples of ethical music
consumption,” while simultaneously “offload[ing] financial risk onto small stores” (2015; p. 2; p. 1). Identifying RSD as
an ambivalent brand culture helps Harvey explain how “the ethical and the exploitative are not contradictory but can
coexist” (2015, p. 3). No matter how relentlessly independent shops are promoted as ethical palaces of authentic cul-
ture, the fact remains that store owners who “order exclusive releases without being able to return unsold merchan-
dise are assuming most of the risk” (Harvey, 2013, p. 5). Harvey's primary ethnographic source in Bloomington, Indiana,
“estimate[s] having to save up $10,000 solely for exclusive merchandise” (2015, p. 5). Crooked Beat owner Bill Daly has
concluded that RSD is “basically a wash” (quoted in Harvey, 2015, p. 5).
While RSD has been a boon to overall record sales and a mixed blessing for shops, it has presented a logjam for pro-
duction. Nowhere has the crunch been more evident than at United in Nashville. Transplanted Nashville resident Jack
White remains vinyl's most prominent champion, appearing on outlets like The Tonight Show to plug his own releases,
where he also sings the praises of records in general. (Thanks in no small to White's popularity and mainstream appear-
ances it has again become standard practice for talk show hosts to hold up a record, rather than a compact disc, while
plugging a guest's product. Even comedians have embraced the trend.) United presses score of RSD releases, and their
collaborations with White's Third Man Records, have garnered the most attention. In 2014, for instance, the Nashville
neighbors collaborated to produce the “world's fastest released record.” White recorded a live version of the title
track for his then-forthcoming Lazaretto album (backed by an Elvis cover) and then paraded the acetate a few blocks
to United's plant. Less than four hours later, the record was pressed, and White triumphantly returned to Third Man
8 of 14 PALM

FIGURE 2 Keep out until Record Store Day!

where fans were waiting to buy a vinyl version of the jams still ringing in their ears. The gimmick won adoring media
coverage from outlets like Time magazine and the Hollywood Reporter as well as Rolling Stone and Billboard, although
none of the coverage noted how many (or which) records were put on hold while United stopped the presses to serve
up White's novelty. The gimmick was also misleading in that same-day record pressing has long been recognized as a
competitive edge artistically as well as commercially. For instance, James Brown purchased King Records in Cincinnati
in 1970, with a plant adjacent to its studios, and he began pressing wax copies immediately after recording especially
promising tracks (Gibney, 2014). It bears repeating that no one has done more to revitalize vinyl than Jack White—
he is a human RSD in that sense—but his chummy relationship with United also epitomizes how RSD exacerbates the
bottleneck inside pressing plants (see Figure 2).
In 2015, the year following White's and United's same-day release, backlash against RSD, Inc. intensified. In Durham,
NC, Bull City Records owner Chaz Martenstein teamed with Merge Records to host live performances showcasing new
LPs by label upstarts Ex Hex alongside mainstays William Tyler and Mac McCaughan (a Merge founder and coowner).
Across the Research Triangle in Carrboro, All Day Records celebrated with a marathon of sets by local female DJs and
served kimchi pancakes, staple fare at All Day's parties. Both shops stocked fewer RSD releases than recent years, and
both veered toward local performers and independent labels (Clauset, personal communication, December 11, 2014;
Martenstein, personal communication, September 6, 2016). Crooked Beat in D.C. has similarly grown more judicious
in their purchase of RSD releases, instead bolstering their regular stock of new and used vinyl in anticipation of holiday
crowds. The store continues to reward early arrivers on RSD with tote bags filled with swag, and the Crooked Beat label
has been successful with a handful of its own limited-run RSD 7″ releases (Daly, personal communication, May 13–14,
2015). RSD celebrations do not require exclusive releases, and a swell of shops no longer stock a single RSD record. The
practice is widespread across London, and a number of US shops are following suit. Since opening in 2010, Logan Hard-
ware Records in Chicago has celebrated RSD by spoofing the city's meat packing history with Ivan the “record butcher”
on hand selling vinyl by the pound at bargain prices. In 2015, Logan stopped stocking RSD releases and continues to
enjoy their highest daily sales as well as attendance of the year.
The backlash is reflected in sales figures. Independent shops continue to celebrate, but sales have plateaued. After
annual increases of over 100% for four years running, RSD's gain globally in 2015 was 4%, a gross figure that does not
account for the fact that major labels have released more exclusive records every year. (The inaugural RSD in 2008 saw
10 exclusive releases; the following year the number jumped to 85, and in 2015 it topped 300.) Harvey rightly iden-
tifies this swell as the result of “overproduction of limited-edition exclusives” by major labels in an attempt to drum
PALM 9 of 14

up scarcity (2015, p. 3). Signaling the corporate takeover of RSD, 2014 was the first year reissues outnumbered new
releases among RSD exclusives, and the following year only 11 of the top 50 releases contained newly recorded mate-
rial. And given rock's dominance of the reissue market overall, it is not surprising that only 10 of the top 50 sellers came
from other genres, mostly hip hop and country. (Harvey (2015, p. 8) quotes one critic's observation that “Record Store
Day doesn't tend to be too exciting for fans of stuff that doesn't have guitars.”) This lack of diversity among top RSD
sellers also obscures the fact that fewer options from emerging artists are being produced anymore for RSD. While
independent stores use RSD as an occasion to build community and boost sales, with or increasingly without exclu-
sive releases, the vinyl holiday presents dilemmas for independent labels. Major label reissues of classic rock staples
have become the primary “bait for Record Store Day,” (Haver Currin, 2014) and some independent labels have fol-
lowed suit. For instance, the past few Aprils Numero Group has released rarities by indie rock legends including Hüsker
Dü, Dinosaur Jr. and Bedhead—hardly Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd in terms of sales and popularity, and these releases
remain true to the label's mission of eschewing erstwhile hits in favor of “sonic excavations” (Numero Group, n.d.). But
such artists also hew closer to the reigning rock aesthetic than the rest of the label's catalog. Numero is an established
and influential label and a leader in the reissue market. Smaller labels featuring new artists are less likely to bother
producing RSD releases given the costs and risks of delay.
Thankfully, despite the glut of classic rock on RSD, overall record sales have begun to shift toward younger demo-
graphics. When Abbey Road was the second highest-selling LP in the United States, in 2012, right behind it came new
records by contemporary artists including Mumford and Sons, the Black Keys, and Bon Iver. In 2014, Abbey Road held
steady as the fourth highest-selling record in the United States, now trailing new albums by Artic Monkeys, Lana Del
Ray, and Jack White. (White also topped overall 2012 vinyl sales, as well as RSD sales in 2015 with—of course—a White
Stripes reissue.) None of these hit albums, it should be noted, has sold as many as one hundred thousand vinyl copies,
but in 2015 over nine million new vinyl records were sold, accounting for 6% of total physical album sales (Billboard,
2015). The youth trend, however modest, is one that can be fueled and nurtured by the welcoming atmosphere (and
sale prices) of RSD parties thrown in independent shops. Obviously, there is a place for classic rock reissues at some
of these parties; many shoppers may be tempted to acquire their first Beatles or Nirvana record alongside a current
favorite or two, and newcomers of all stripes may feel reassured by the presence of classics alongside more rarified
fare. The advantages of Numero's recommended pivot from overserving superfans to super-serving casual fans are
never more apparent than on RSD.
Independent record stores are managing to undercut the incursion of major labels while continuing to capitalize
on RSD, boosting sales and building interest among shoppers, new and old. However, more than any other factor,
major labels' embrace of RSD continues to inflate the vinyl bubble. At best, the frenzy of reissuing classics indicates
confidence in vinyl's future among major labels; far more likely, they are overinvesting in vinyl on the cheap in order
to cash in while they can. All major labels dumped their own pressing plants during the bad old days, and none have
resumed production in-house. Instead, the majors send their orders to independent plants like United. In June 2017,
Sony announced it has purchased pressing machinery and plans to begin manufacturing its own records in the spring
of 2018, marking the first time in 30 years that a major label will press its own records. (It is worth noting that Sony
is one of the cofounders of the CD format, as well as having invented the Walkman.) This development is encourag-
ing on two fronts: major labels pressing their own records will ease the backlog at independent plants; and, Sony is
considering pressing records on contract, which would help meet demand in thriving vinyl markets across Asia, where
manufacturing had dwindled regionally to a single plant in Australia (Chappell, 2017). Sony's new plant notwithstand-
ing, the direction of RSD over the next couple years will influence, if not determine, the future of vinyl manufacturing
after the bubble pops.

3 PRESSING FORWARD

Release delays and restock slowdowns are the primary production problems facing independent record labels and
shops, not to mention musicians and fans. The inability to restock popular new vinyl releases has become “the
10 of 14 PALM

biggest problem for [independent] stores like Crooked Beat. Virtually every title that has been a big seller (made
our top ten sellers list) has experienced some sort of delay in restocking over the past several years” (Daly, personal
communication, May 13–14, 2015). Two recent hits—Panda Bear's Meet the Grim Reaper and Father John Misty's I Love
You, Honeybear—sold out quickly and could not be restocked at Crooked Beat for months, which “kills momentum for
the release” not to mention for independent shops trying to sell vinyl copies of it (Daly, personal communication, May
13–14, 2015). If a hit cannot be restocked before interest wanes or fans find it elsewhere, then any unsold copies cost
merchants, too: most music labels accept returned copies of unsold CDs, but not records, which raises the costs of any
vinyl overstocks.
The cost of pressing a record runs between $2 and $10, exponentially more than a CD, and opportunities to boost
efficiency with new technology are severely limited. Brooklyn Phono, for example, has digitized many of their controls,
but the upgrades enhance precision more than speed. Founding coowner and production manager Thomas Bersich
(Personal communication, June 3, 2015) loves to “tool up” his presses any chance he sees, but the surest way to temper
vinyl's production costs is to add capacity, which is more easily said than done. A new record press has not been built in
the United States since 1982. The going rate for a used press is roughly $25,000, and the costs of renovating one can
run several times higher. Manufacturing a new press would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, not to mention set up
costs of supporting infrastructure including boilers and cooling baths, which run several hundred thousand as well. All
told, a new press could be a million-dollar investment. As demand grows, established and start-up record plants alike
search the globe for any salvageable presses to refurbish.
Newbilt, a German company, has begun to manufacture new presses, the first in 35 years. The design is unchanged
from decades ago, but the molds and machinery are new. Newbilt's Web site warns: “You should budget upwards of
€200,000 for setting up vinyl record replication. For the upstream equipment—stamper making and mastering—you
should budget more” (Newbilt FAQ, n.d.). Newbilt's vague estimates point to another, less prominent bottleneck fur-
ther up the supply chain: the metal stampers used to press vinyl copies. Silke Maurer of Handle with Care, a German-
based conglomerate of record plants, warns that the “real problem is not in the pressing—the bottleneck is in the elec-
troplating” (Herrmann, 2015). Electroplating involves coating master lacquers in a chemical layer to make “stampers,”
which are then loaded into presses. The electroplating process involves highly skilled labor and is also time-sensitive.
Lacquers do not store indefinitely and ideally should be electroplated within two weeks of their creation. Some larger
presses plate lacquers in-house, such as Erika and Rainbo near L.A., but there is only one independent electroplating
facility in the United States, of just a handful globally (Author, in progress). Furthermore, Maurer points out, only one
company manufactures the styluses used to groove lacquers in the first place. While the backlog in pressing plants is a
problem in need of solving, it is far from the only bottleneck along the vinyl supply chain.
There are currently upwards of two dozen record plants in the United States, of about 40 globally (“World records,”
2014). A handful are survivors of vinyl's 1990s nadir, while more than a dozen new plants have sprung up during the
past decade and several during the past few years. Intense demand has led to something of a “press race,” but any
new capacity will only be sustainable as long as demand continues to escalate. Unless record sales continue at the
same breakneck pace they have for a decade, the recent surge of corporate investment will, as is so often the case,
generate a crisis of overproduction—or, more precisely, a crisis of overproduction capacity. In the case of vinyl records,
production capacity is too expensive to acquire and maintain unless it can be fully utilized. This is a common problem
in manufacturing sectors, and it heightens the risks of expanding during a price bubble. In the music industry press as
well as mainstream news outlets, no shortage of ink has been spilled over the so-called “vinyl resurgence,” and at least
one commentator has pointed out that “vinyl won't really make a comeback until we have more record presses” (Neal,
2014). The ceiling for vinyl's manufacture remains a limitation, but expansion will not stabilize the market in the long
run. The problem inside plants is one of sustainability as well as capacity.
To counteract corporate glut in the vinyl marketplace, the advantages of independent record manufacturing are
plain to see. Major labels send their records to large plants like United (as well as Erika and Rainbo near L.A. and GZ in
the Czech Republic). By outsourcing production, “the majors are attempting to buy their way into an industry that they
played a significant role in destroying … attempting once again to starve the indie labels, the very labels that never gave
up on vinyl” (Herrmann, 2015). United has opened a new plant and brought 16 new presses online, raising their total
PALM 11 of 14

to 38. Meanwhile, several independent American labels have purchased their own presses. Independent labels have
long doubled as distributors, and plenty open their own stores to goose distribution from the consumption side, most
famously Stax Records in Memphis, whose studio featured a storefront record shop throughout the label's heyday. Now
some independent labels are manufacturing their own records as well as distributing and selling them. Two hundred
miles down I-40 from United in Nashville, Fat Possum Records has opened its own plant, christened Memphis Record
Pressing. Fat Possum used to have their records pressed in Europe and then shipped to a Sony warehouse in Indiana for
distribution. Now, production as well as distribution can be taken care of in-house. Cofounder Matt Johnson explains
the label's expansion in succinct terms: “You used to not have to worry about manufacturing. Now you do” (Brown,
2014). The Secretly Group, a coalition of independent labels including Numero, has also opened a new plant in New
Jersey and begun pressing their own as well as other independent labels' records. And, no surprise, Third Man Records
bought the first eight new presses sold by Newbilt, and in February 2017 opened its own plant in Jack White's home-
town of Detroit (Third Man Records, 2015). White's commitment to vinyl manufacturing bodes well for the format's
future. Hopefully, his celebrity and company can both help address bottlenecks further up the supply chain. Meanwhile,
by pressing their own records, independent labels like Fat Possum and Numero Group are positioning themselves to
continue thriving after the vinyl bubble pops.

4 CONCLUSION: SAME AS IT EVER WAS

Thanks to vertical integration among independent record labels, it is increasingly possible that the vinyl bubble may
be deflated rather than popped. It is also likely that records will continue to hold steady as a niche format in what some
scholars have taken to calling our “postdigital” condition (e.g., Berry and Dieter, 2015). This formulation allows criticism
to move beyond binaries such as analog/digital and the digital divide, whereby nonuse of digital technology is charac-
terized as a lack of access or deficiency in skill, and the only possible redress involves “catching up.” Access to digital
technology is unquestionably uneven, and scholars of popular media should strive to expose, unpack, and attack tech-
nological inequity in all its forms. For a circumscribed case like vinyl, it is not inappropriate to describe the exclusivity of
musical subcultures organized around a shared appreciation of records in terms of an analog divide, since the where-
withal to locate, afford, and play records can be difficult for the uninitiated to come by. Framing our contemporary
media landscape as postdigital highlights the lack of absoluteness in one's experience of any media as purely digital or
nondigital. Documenting the manufacture of vinyl records reveals some of digital technology's limitations for cultural
production. Meanwhile, contemporary vinyl commerce and culture both qualify as postdigital, as opposed to purely
analog, as evidenced by online sales, promotion, and discussion; the inclusion of download codes for digital copies of
new vinyl releases; and the outfitting of newly designed turntables with USB ports and Bluetooth. (A lack of working
turntables is another bottleneck being addressed by manufacturers, such as Crosley, who market a widening array of
affordable and kid-friendly models. Sony has also recently marketed a high-end turntable equipped with a USB port.)
In a recent article about “willing digital disconnect,” Thorén et al. “problematize the traditional dichotomy of ‘ana-
logue’ and ‘digital’” by focusing on technology's “aesthetics and affordances” rather than its materiality or lack thereof
(2017, p. 12). Now that it is no longer “so easy to distinguish between digital and analogue,” consumers seeking authen-
tic culture are better served, they argue, by “finding legitimacy in hybridized technological solutions rather than in the
either-or of the digital divide. …Searching for ‘analogue’ in the post-digital society is not only difficult but will in the end
reveal to be futile” (Thorén, Edenius, Eriksson Lundström, & Kitzmann, 2017, p. 13). They playfully refer to this experi-
ential bleeding between analog and digital as “the hipster's dilemma.” More soberly, Jonathan Sterne (2014) suggests
that a strict analog/digital divide reveals an historian's dilemma as well. It is, after all, only recently that the term analog
began to make sense as an adjective as well as a noun. Usage of the term, analog, began to “wildly proliferate” during
the 1980s and 1990s, alongside the emergence of personal computers, cell phones, and the Internet (Sterne, 2014). In
short order “the analog” became a state unto itself, in excess of analogs between disparate signals, and today “analog”
functions as a label to describe anything as nondigital—or, more pointedly, antidigital. Sterne (2014) critiques common
usage of the term for its conceptual or categorical fuzziness. “Analog nostalgia” relies on “a truly radical periodization,”
12 of 14 PALM

whereby for “about 100 golden years of human history … roughly from the last quarter of the 19th century to the last
quarter of the 20th … the senses and the world were somehow in harmonious alignment with media” (Sterne, 2014).
Rather than relying on the term to animate “a hermeneutics of suspicion to the digital,” Sterne (2014) calls for some
technical specificity to “free us from the burden of a history that was only recently invented.” Focusing Serne's critique
on music formats specifically, Alex Maiolo (2017) points out that lamenting the decline of record sales was “specious
nostalgia” in the first place, since vinyl enjoyed a stint as a “default format” for popular music, accepted rather than
embraced by the lion's share of listeners.
One particularly pernicious implication of “analog nostalgia” is that it can lead scholars of popular music to assume
that digitization and corporatization proceed in lock step. For independent merchants, the two often go hand in hand.
Digital formats generate competition for record retailers; however, online sales have been a boon for merchants small
as well as big. RSD's overseers limit participation in the holiday to “brick and mortar retailer[s] whose main primary
business focuses on a physical store location,” yet at least two of my favorite local shops, All Day Records and Carolina
Soul, stock RSD exclusives while annually moving the lion's share of their merchandise online (RSD “About us,” quoted
in Harvey, 2017, p. 7). Furthermore, nearly all independent record labels peddle their wares in digital as well as physi-
cal formats. Hardly a threat for these labels, digital media provide additional platforms for sales and promotion. Along
with breaking the habit of conceiving of analog and digital as opposites, scholars of popular music will be well served
by decoupling the digital from the corporate. For lovers as well as makers of independent music, the corporate reem-
brace of analog formats is just as threatening as their stranglehold on digital distribution. No doubt, the digitization of
popular music has been a largely corporatized affair; however, separating digitization and corporatization as distinct
phenomena will help critical scholars of popular music focus on the real enemy.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Nascent parts of this paper were presented at IASPM-US 2015 in Louisville, which was organized as a collective dedi-
cation to Stuart Hall and his incalculable contributions to the study of popular music. Warm thanks to Justin Burton, Ali
Colleen Neff, and Diane Pecknold for organizing a whale of a weekend, and to David Arditi and Anthony Kwame Harri-
son and for schooling me during our ‘Material Economies’ panel. Many thanks also to Oliver Wang for encouraging me
to submit to JPMS and to an anonymous reviewer for two rounds of clear-eyed, incisive, and encouraging feedback.

WORKS CITED
Author (in progress). Metal machine music: Mastercraft, Inc. and the electroplated mothers.
Banet-Weiser, S. (2012). Authentic: The politics of ambivalence in a brand culture. New York, NY: NYU Press.
Bartmanski, D., & Woodward, I. (2015). Vinyl: The analogue record in the digital age. London, UK: Bloomsbury.
Benjamin, W. (1936). The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. Marxists Internet Archive. Retrieved from
marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm
Berry, D. M., & Dieter, M. (Eds.) (2015). Postdigital aesthetics: Art, computation and design. London, UK: Palgrave.
Billboard Staff. (2015, March 9). The resurgence of vinyl in seven graphics: A breakdown. Billboard. Retrieved from
billboard.com/articles/business/6495044/the-resurgence-of-vinyl-in-seven-graphics-a-breakdown
Brown, H. (2014, December 23). Fat possum open vinyl pressing plant to meet (Its own) Demand. Billboard. Retrieved from
billboard.com/articles/business/6413807/fat-possum-opens-vinyl-pressing-plant
Chabon, M. (2012). Telegraph avenue. New York, NY: Harper Collins.
Chappell, B. (2017, June 29). Sony will start making vinyl records again in Japan after a nearly 30-year hiatus. NPR.org.
Retrieved from npr.org/sections/thetwoway/2017/06/29/534854280/sony-will-start-making-vinyl-records-again-in-
japan-after-nearly-30-year-hiatus
Cohen, L. (2003). A consumer's republic: The politics of mass consumption in postwar America. New York, NY: Vintage.
Collateral damage: Numero Group on the vinyl bubble. (2013, June). The Wire. Retrieved from thewire.co.uk/
inwriting/essays/collateral-damage_numero-group-on-the-vinyl-bubble
Davis, J. (2007). Going analog: Vinylphiles and the consumption of the ‘obsolete’ vinyl record. In C. R. Acland (Ed.), Residual
media (pp. 222–236). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
PALM 13 of 14

du Gay, P., Hall, S., Janes, L., Koed Madsen, A., Mackay, H., & Negus, K. (1997). Doing cultural studies: The story of the Sony Walkman.
London, UK: Sage.
Ellis-Petersen, H. (2016, December 6). Tables turned as vinyl sales overtake digital sales for first time in U.K. The Guardian,
Retrieved from theguardian.com/music/2016/dec/06/tables-turned-as-vinyl-records-outsell -digital-in-uk-for-first-time
Flanagan, A. (2014, May 7). America's largest record plant expands thanks to vinyl boom – but its never been in trouble. Bill-
board. Retrieved from billboard.com/biz/articles/news/retail/6077613/united-record-pressing-expands-jay-millar-vinyl-
sales-qa
Gibney, A. (Director) (2014). Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown. United States: HBO Films.
Halpern, A. (2011, July 3). The analog underground. New York Magazine. Retrieved from nymag.com/shopping/
features/analog-2011-7/
Hann, M. (2014, November 27). Vinyl's making a comeback? Don't believe the hype. The Guardian. Retrieved from
theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2014/nov/27/vinyls-making-a-comeback-dont-believe-the-hype
Harvey, E. (2015, April 23). Siding with vinyl: Record Store Day and the branding of independent music. International Journal of
Cultural Studies, 1–18.
Haver Currin, G. (2014, April 25). Running out of history: The issue with reissues. Wondering Sound 25. Retrieved from
wonderingsound.com/feature/the-issue-with-reissues-record-store-day/ (now defunct)
Here are this year's fifty best-selling Record Store Day releases – and most of them are reissues. (2015, April 21). The
Vinyl Factory. Retrieved from thevinylfactory.com/vinyl-factory-news/here-are-this-years-50-best-selling-record-store-
day-releases-and-most-of-them-are-reissues/
Herrmann, T. (2015, May 7). Pressed to the edge: Why vinyl hype is destroying the record. Fact. Retrieved from
factmag.com/2015/05/07/pressed-to-the-edge-vinyl/
Hornby, N. (1996). High fidelity. New York, NY: Riverhead.
Impact. Record Store Day. (n.d.) Wikipedia. Retrieved from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Record_Store_Day#Impact
Imperfect Pleasures: Exploring Analogue Culture. (n.d.). Retrieved from imperfectpleasures.com/
Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York, NY: NYU Press.
Katz, M. (2012). Groove music: The art & culture of the hip hop DJ. London, UK: Oxford University Press.
Maiolo, A. (Panelist) (2017, June 10). “The Future of Streaming” [Episode 89]. The Future of What. Podcast retrieved from
https://killrockstars.com/thefutureofwhat/episode-89-evolution-streaming/
MakerBot Introduces 3-D Printable Vinyl Records. (2011, April 1). MakerBot. Retrieved from makerbot.com/
blog/2011/04/01/makerbot-introduces-3d-printable-vinyl-records
McCall, M. (1999, March 29). Turning point: The colorful past and promising future of United Record Pressing. Retrieved from
nashvillescene.com/news/article/13003103/turning-point
Meltzer, R. (2000). A whore just like the rest. Boston, MA: Da Capo.
Neal, M. (2014, January 16). Vinyl won't really make a comeback until we have more presses. Motherboard. Retrieved from
motherboard.vice.com/blog/vinyl-wont-really-make-comeback-until-we-have-more-record-presses (since removed)
Newbilt FAQ. (n.d.). Newbilt. Retrieved from newbilt.com/faq-2/
Nickson, C. (2009, December 7). Turntables sales up, vinyl rocking music again. TechRadar. Retrieved from
techradar.com/news/audio/turntables-sales-up-vinyl-rocking-music-again-656319
Numero Group. (n.d.). Behind the numbers. Retrieved from https://numerogroup.com/pages/behind-the-numbers
O'Hagen, S. (2011, April 23). Analogue artists defying the digital age. The Guardian. Retrieved from theguardian.
com/culture/2011/apr/24/mavericks-defying-digital-age
Osbourne, R. (2014). Vinyl: The history of the analogue record. Farnham, UK: Ashgate.
Record store day drives impressive sales boost. (2013, April 26). Hyberbot. Retrieved from hypebot.
com/hypebot/2013/04/record-store-day-drives-impressive-sales-boost.html
Rietveld, H. (2007). Vinyl junkies and the soul sonic force of the 12-inch dance single. In C. R. Acland (Ed.), Residual media (pp.
97–114). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Rose, T. (1994). Black noise: Rap music and black culture in contemporary America. Middletown, CN: Wesleyan.
Sisario, B. (2015, September 14). Vinyl LP frenzy brings record-pressing machines back to life. New York Times. Retrieved from
nytimes.com/2015/09/15/business/media/a-vinyl-lp-frenzy-brings-record-pressing-machines-back-to-life.html
Sterne, J. (2014, May 15). Analogue [draft]. Digital Keywords. Culture Digitally. Retrieved from culturedigitally.
org/2014/05/analog-draftdigitalkeywords/
14 of 14 PALM

Tappe, C. (2013, May 8). The rising cost of new vinyl, or, shove your $30 Smiths reissue up your collective asses. Record Collector
News. Retrieved from recordcollectornews.com/2013/05/the-rising-cost-of-new-vinyl/
Taylor, J. (Panelist) (2017, June 10). The future of streaming [Episode 89]. The Future of What. Podcast retrieved from
https://killrockstars.com/thefutureofwhat/episode-89-evolution-streaming/
Third Man Records. (2015, November 20). News. Third Man Records. Retrieved from thirdmanrecords.com/news
Thorén, C., Edenius, M., Eriksson Lundström, J., & Kitzmann, A. (2017), June 15). The hipster's dilemma: What is analogue or
digital in the post-digital society? Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 1–16.
Trammell, M. (2016, February 3). Why Apple and Beats should sell turntables. The New Yorker. Retrieved from
newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/why-apple-and-beats-should-sell-turntables
Ulanoff, L. (2013, March 12). 3-D record plays like the real thing. Mashable. Retrieved from mashable.com/2013/03/12/3d-
printed-record-plays/
Ulloa, N. (2013, October 23). The slow and painful death of the download continues… Digital Music News. Retrieved from digi-
talmusicnews.com/2013/10/03/soundscan/
United Record Pressing. (n.d.). Loyalty. United Record Pressing. Retrieved from urpressing.com/loyalty (removed).
Veblen, T. (1899). The theory of the leisure class. London, UK: Macmillan.
Williams, R. (2003). Television: Technology and cultural form. New York, NY: Routledge Classics.
World records: The global vinyl economy in four interactive maps. (2014, December 2). The Vinyl Factory. Retrieved from
the vinylfactory.com/vinyl-factory-releases/world-records-the-global-vinyl-economy-in-four-interactive-maps/

How to cite this article: Palm M. Analog backlog: Pressing records during the vinyl revival. J. Pop. Music Stud.
2017;29,e12247. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpms.12247