Our world as you probably realize by now is way too complicated. We have to hire specialists like lawyers and accountant to help navigate the morass of bureaucracy and regulation. Many professions have prospered because of the elimination of the rule of common sense in our economy and in our laws. Increasingly the common man becomes more and more detached from what many call “progress”. The world has gotten too complex and cloud of information pollution threatens to further confuse our lives.
It is time to reach out an demand simpler things. It is happening and happening fast. No more can that be seen with the resurgence of vinyl record albums.
According to data released last week by Nielsen Soundscan, more than 9.2 million vinyl records were sold in the U.S. last year, marking a 52% increase over the year before. The Wall Street Journalalso reports that the vinyl sales are the highest numbers recorded by SoundScan since the music industry monitor started tracking them back in 1991. Data from the British Phonographic Industry reveals that for the first time in nearly 20 years, more than one million vinyl records were sold in the U.K. in 2014.
The figures on digital sales are telling, while streaming was up, the purchases of digital downloads dropped 9% for albums and 12% for songs in 2014. German-based company Optimal recently told the Guardian that they’re expecting to press 18 million records in 2015.
According to music industry experts in vinyl and digital, the answer is two-fold. Vinyl remains popular because the high-quality sound it delivers. While mist everyone has been saying for years that the sound on vinyl yields a richer, warmer and clearer sound than what’s being released online. Techn ical snobbery maynot be the only reasons for this rise. There is much joy in handling a Vinyl record. Larger graphics with intriguing back covers. The physicality of the record , is a draw for most people.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau. Bookstore sales hit $698 million in the month of June 2015 compared to $672 million last June. That is a 3.9% increase.E-Book sales are on the decline, people are defined by their possessions and the wonder of books and music reaching us via the digital ether has lost its mystique.
On the floor of the cavernous main hall inside North London’s glass roofed Alexandra Palace,fifteen thousand people dressed as Bedouins are sitting on cushions waiting for the start of a screening of Lawrence of Arabia. From the side of the hall a robed Lawrence of Arabia enters astride a real camel, with real camel smells, spit and of course camel by-products. The camel comes to s stop and the rider dismounts and begins to proclaim, “The Arabian peoples are victorious!” The movie starts.
The time of the multiplex is coming to a well deserved end. Pop-ups cinemas are heralding the much wanted return of spectacle in film screenings. A 70 inch plasma screen and a decent home sound system can compete handily with most multiplex screens. But through in a camel and 15,000 of your closest friends and it can never be equalled.
Simplicity and showmanship are coming back and coming back fast. It’s time to make movies special again
