Why you should start buying original LP records

In 2007, the “Vinyl revival” was borned. Since then, every label are reprinting some old-time classics to reach this new demand and the price of old LP records is rising. We will explain here why it is usually better to buy originals than reissues.

The value

Every collection is kind of an investment: Pokemon cards, stamps, coins, video games, tapes, etc. In most cases, the price will go higher with time, sometimes it will even skyrocket. And there is a simple reason for that: the supply gets smaller and smaller. Some copies are destroyed, some are too worn to worth anything, some get lost or are just locked by other collectors. So it is safe to assume that the amount of original copies of Breakfast in America from Supertramp is getting lower as time goes by for instance.

Even if some think that you shouldn’t collect LP records for their price, it is nice to know that you are not “wasting” money, and that if you wanted to, you could sell your collection for a higher price than the amount of money you spent on it.

The sound quality

It is a slightly controversial point and it is maybe the most common reason why the originals are more wanted than new ones. First of all, songs released back in the days have been recorded and mastered specifically for the physical vinyl format. Nowadays, music is almost exclusively recorded and mastered for digital (CDs or streaming). Every era adapted the music mastering to the best-selling medium at that time. For instance, it is accepted that pre-70s vinyls are usually the best, as it was the only way to listen music back then.
On the other hand, a lot of record companies are re-releasing albums on vinyl in the midst of the current vinyl revival. Unfortunately for the buyer (and the listener), many of them have chosen not to remaster them for vinyl and are just pressing the compressed digital sound into the vinyl to save on cost and make some quick profit.

However, there are good and bad recordings from every era. If there is a global trend that says that newly pressed vinyl are generally worse than the originals (especially in niche music genres), it is not true in every situation. An old LP record has higher chance to be worn because of bad care/store. Also, some modern artists are putting a lot of care in the making of a vinyl version of their album. Daft Punk records are usually great sound-speaking!

The offer

Maybe it won’t be true forever, but a lot of albums are not released again in the LP format. So you can find unique albums or compilations that will never be produced again (due to the lack of demand on this particular artist/album maybe?).
Like in a lot of collections, vinyl records can be seen as pieces of history. They are witnesses of their time, and are truly unique. Most of them will never be edited again the way they were released.

If ever you are interested in original LP records, especially after our speech, you can check our section of the shop about it: