Teens wanting analog stuff all of a sudden?

[pasteldome]

My teens (who both have February Birthdays) are currently asking for things like a CD player, DVDs, CDs, wired head phones, DS wants a record player and DD wants a vintage compact digital or film camera and a planner / notebook that costs about £60 and a pricey fountain pen.

I get that analog is a trend and I'm enjoying sharing my 90's music with them and if we have old tech or CD's then they can use them for sure but some of what they want is quite expensive Vinyl for example.

I think that the impulse is genuine to want to get away from screens and I'm delighted that my daughter seems more interested in books although she isn't yet reading a lot she got Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar and Jane Eyre for Christmas which are still on her bedside so I think she will get into them eventually.

We don't have a cd player anymore or a record player and so before I invest in any more tech / stuff is this just a trend do you think?

I hate cds - they scratch and jump about. I’m amazed anyone wants them back. An album with only 4 decent songs for £15?! Not a chance! Sorry kids, Apple Music all the way here. This is one thing for which I am eternally grateful to technology.

I'd strongly advise you don't let her read The Bell Jar if you possibly can. It's an awful book, full of mental illness descriptions and it can trigger depression and suicidal ideation in some people. There are far better books out there.

Always encourage analogue purchases, as everything in the digital sphere is going to end up monetised via subscriptions in the future and you never truly own something that can be controlled via app. It's convenient to stream at the moment, but they'll just keep increasing costs. They can also remove things from streaming services.

I was on a train the other day and someone was using a Walkman, I was amazed but I think these things are making a comeback slowly. Unfortunately a lot of us now are addicted more than we should be to our devices (including me) I've also seen quite a few videos online about how everything is subscription based now so we no longer own material (for example dvds /CDs will have songs/movies on there forever as you own the content, whereas subscription services make take scenes out/song become unavailable)
But yes CDs /dvds do scratch whereas digital it's all smooth. We are spoilt for choice now which is great in some ways but we also now expect everything instantly too.

@tescofishcakes I do think streaming music can be great as it lets me listen to new artists and easily make playlists of songs for different occasions but I do think that with some artists listening to a full album as they intended has a lot of value and I think physical media like CD's and so on do encourage that more than streaming.

You probably aren't listening properly then or you don't have decent modern audio equipment to listen to it on.

Modern high end audio equipment is far superior to older stuff. In fact I have an old sony stereo (maybe 30 years old) and was listening to CDs on it the other day and the sound quality was really poor compared to modern equipment.

People today just don't realise how crap sound used to be on things like Walkmans (tape hiss and slow playback as the battery voltage varied) and record players with their scratches and crackles. Older speaker technology is just nowhere near as good as modern tech, so even digital CDs play much worse than on newer tech.

Sometimes you can tell the quality is worse on something like an MP3 where compression is used compared to a CD if it is played on high end equipment although on most cooking audio equipment it is hard to tell and if you are that fussy you can always move to SACD.

@Letsgodancing We really are spoilt for choice, its amazing in some ways but I do remember that the increased friction to getting that book, album, film you wanted sort of heightened its value to you and your appreciation of it. The ease at which things can be got could be seen as devaluing them by some.

I think the biggest advantage old vinyl/cd's and cassettes have is that when you have one you actually feel you have got not only a recording, but an art object as well which is important to collectors.

Some old 12" and album covers really are great works of display art. Cassettes and CD's probably less so.

Yep good modern tech offers insanely good quality.

Buying old vinyl and CDs isnt about supporting art at all as they are 2nd hand.

Its about consumerism and capitalism and owning possessions.

Its anout signalling social status as this way of listening to music requires physical room

I’ve definitely noticed my young adults getting into 90s and 80s music (yay!)
They better keep their sticky paws off my vinyl though..
I miss dedicated portable music players. I pods dont seem to exist anymore? I don’t want to take my phone on a run, it’s too big. You could clip an i pod nano on and it had that dial thing which was handy.

@Neighull I think that's a really bleak way of looking at it. It wasn't that long ago that minimalism was being framed by some as a signifier of privilege and wealth because it was easy to let go of "stuff" if you could easily repurchase it all again if you needed or wanted to.

People also are buying new vinyl from contemporary artists like Taylor Swift for example. I also think there is something special about listening to an records on a good record player even the imperfection can add a warmth to the experience although I am probably referring more to older music that was not recorded digitally so I'm not sure how that might change things.

I do think teens have been marketed to since being a teenager has been a thing and that they have used consumer goods especially things like clothes, books and music to define and express their identity but there is also real curiosity and joy wrapped up in and as I said earlier that slight level of friction of having to obtain a physical copy of an album, book or film I think does make you value the thing a bit more. I remember when I used to have to go to the bookshop in town and order books to the book shop from the US. It would take weeks and weeks for them to arrive but when they did they were so prized and cherished, read and reread. I used to frequent second hand record shops in my university town every week and was surprised when the shop owners started to hold back things for me they thought I might like. Now you don't get those relationships because you just order or stream it online.

Taping the Top 40 on a Sunday night providing a mixed tape of entertainment for the week ahead. Punching the air when you stopped it just at the right moment at the end before the DJ chimed in. 😁

Was having a wander down memory lane myself yesterday. Stunned to discover Adam Ant is 71.......whaaat??

GenX are the last generation to have grown up in the analogue world. It's on us to pass it on. If it's lost and forgotten forever, that's our fault.

Im a fountain pen fan (on a small scale) I'd often have a couple of kids interested in what was I my pencil case today. Quite a few had Lamys and parent's old pens.(cult pens is both your friend and your enemy here)

@pasteldome “that slight level of friction of having to obtain a physical copy of an album, book or film I think does make you value the thing a bit more”

I’d say it’s realer than that – you’re actually having a different experience which starts with physically moving to get it, handling the thing, looking at the packaging, smelling it even, placing it on the turntable and the needle on the record, sitting back with big speakers and being curated through a whole side for twenty minutes.

Compared to searching on Spotify, adding to a playlist, and doing something else four minutes later – it’s not just an illusion, they actually are different things you’re doing.

I saw something on the news the other day that DVDs are becoming popular again. I’ve still got loads - I hate the idea of not being able to watch something specific because it’s been taken off streaming, you have complete control if you have a physical copy (but admittedly less storage space!)

I don’t think anyone would claim buying second hand music and stereo equipment is about supporting art. But the capitalism thing is a bit more complicated than that. Buying from individuals and second hand shops is about supporting small businesses and sellers rather than giving your money to big corporations.
As for the physical space thing, nobody except the very extreme music buffs had trouble fitting their cds into tiny student rooms in our day. You don’t have to have massive speakers and acres of space for your vinyl.

Kindles came and went like this, didn’t they? Maybe, rather than this thread being a weird blip, when we look back it’ll turn out that it’s digital devices and streaming and so on which turned out to be just a series of fads.

@pasteldome I really liked my wired Bose because the noise cancelling was much much better. Very important on public transport.

For the gym I used to have a thing that my MP3 player slipped into, on my arm. Actually, I used to walk around the office with those on if I wasn't expecting any clients.

I still have them and occasionally take my MP3 player and old headphones for long train journeys! People might think I'm nuts - I don't know.

@Sskka did Kindles go because everyone's using the app on whatever device?

They haven’t gone anywhere, just, instead of assuming everyone wants one and books are about to go obsolete we have realised that they are good for specific things but some people actually do prefer a book.

I adore my Kindle for reading at night, making the text big for my declining eyesight, taking loads of books on holiday, but I am not going to stop buying books, and I have been amazed how often my dcs want books for Christmas- in particular beautiful and significant editions of books they’re going to read again.

I do agree, I suppose I was thinking back to my own younger self I think where I had to travel to Poland as a student to see the work of a filmmaker I was writing my thesis on because it just wasn't available, just getting to see them felt like an achievement.

However you're right the physical ritual is key also see the ritual of Tea or Coffee making and the effort people will put into that to have that sort of grounding tactile experience.. Also with listening to the whole of an album as intended. I think I mentioned that elsewhere earlier, physical media does encourage that as opposed to jumping about on spotify.

DVDs are pretty awful on modern TVs. The resolution is horrible and even with high end upscaling equipment they still look crap. And I don't even have a particularly large TV (48"). God knows how horrible they would be on a 70" monster. I can't really think of any good reason to want to own them, maybe other than watching stuff like the Simpsons/cartoons and checking out the special features.

Blu rays and 4K are another issue though.

Blu rays don't tend to have the audio support or HDR. They upscale pretty good to 4K on my TV and are watchable, but there is a reason why 4K is considered enthusiast level.

4K often has HDR which along with the increased resolution on the right set looks amazing and they also include theatre level audio support, such as 5.1 and Dolby Atmos.

Blu ray is pretty much the minimum I can take without my eyes bleeding.

I am always amazed at how bad the quality of TV pictures were back in the 1990s. They were practically unwatchable by modern standards and people had screens the size of postage stamps.

I have an old tv too though so they look fine to me!

The picture was terrible but at least you could understand what the actors were saying!

Taping the Top 40 on a Sunday night providing a mixed tape of entertainment for the week ahead. Punching the air when you stopped it just at the right moment at the end before the DJ chimed in.

Oh yes! And fingers poised to press 'Record' in time to catch the first notes.

The picture was terrible but at least you could understand what the actors were saying!

Yes, it's not about sound quality, it's that so many actors now don't seem able to speak properly. Open your mouth when you speak and don't mumble!

@GasPanic DVD's look fine on our 10 year old TV although when I last tried a VHS tape I knew there was no going back to that on a modern TV it was so fuzzy and hard to make out and I can tolerate some degree of bad quality.

New TV's though I'm not so sure. DB has a high end new one and it makes everything overly sharp and very real looking so that films lose that nice filmic quality, even old one's made on actual film, I really don't like that.