Vinyl Revisited Drop the Needle
By Jay Cooper Contributor / Musican
There is nothing quite like the feeling of unwrapping a new album, reading the cov-
er and dropping the needle in anticipation of listening to a new record. Growing up in the 1970’s was a different time. We had very few TV channels and played outside. There were no computers or internet to distract a young mind. But there was one thing that gave that generation huge pleasure and inspired conversation amongst your peers - Vinyl records. The fact that the music industry intentionally killed records to sell CDs in the mid to late 1980’s, the sales numbers and expanding retail outlets show that vinyl is anything but dead. The question is easy - Do you remember your first record or do you remember your first download? For me and countless others, our first record is the easy answer. Still having hundreds of albums myself, I wanted some insight from industry professionals and avid collectors on this subject. I spoke to Bob Roper, who is a music industry icon and has worked at WEA (Warner/Elektra/Atlantic) Records, Capitol Records, EMI Music, A&M Records and is now the Vice President and Chair of the Arts Management Program at The Harris Institute. He has worked with bands such as RUSH, Gowan, Van Halen, Supertramp, Blue Rodeo, The Nylons, Glass Tiger, Rik Emmett, Molly Johnson, Styx, Honeymoon Suite, Ian Thomas, Spirit of the West, AC/DC, Doobie Brothers, Burton Cummings, Trooper, and many more. He is also a lover and avid collector of vinyl.
Bob Roper Page 40
Having seen first hand the dark days of the end of vinyl, Bob explains, “Companies are hell bent on killing CDs, which isn’t unlike when I sat in the board room at WEA and cried the day Warner and everyone else decided not to press vinyl. We’re going to make them buy a CD. We’re going to make them pay two and a half times what it costs us to make a record and they’re going to have to re-buy their entire collection. So what I do is buy those records that were not released in the 80’s and 90’s on vinyl that are being released now. At one point I had over 17,000 records and one day I moved some stuff and realized that the floorboards were about two inches lower than they should have been. I had put them on a wall that didn’t have
