Record Player Redux

Phil Spector may be in for some jailhouse rocking, but this story in USA Today points out that not all artifacts of the Age of Vinyl are hitting the skids. Writes Jefferson Graham:

Record players, whose sales wound down to a halt almost a decade ago, are coming around again.

No one expects an exodus from the dominant compact disc to the nostalgic format. Nonetheless, sales of turntables and the vinyl LPs played on them are experiencing a resurgence as younger listeners are buying less of today's music and rediscovering relatives' archives.

Record sales--admittedly a paltry 1 percent of all prerecorded music sales--were up substantially last year, in contrast to the larger industry trend. And one fellow estimates there some 10 billion LPs still cluttering up the nation's attics. Thanks to cheap, nostalgically designed players from manufacturers such as Teac and Crosley, it looks like vinyl discs will be sticking around for a long time (and not just because they take a million years to biodegrade).