Vinyl is the new NFT?

You are right, and we are happy. For those who don’t buy vinyl, cassettes, or CDs, you don’t have to worry that a specific song is going to sell out; your stream will be there forever on one platform or another.

But are we now running wax ledgers? Is the turntable optional?

The rise of the special-edition, colored, liquid, limited-print, sold-out, waitlist vinyl. Once they’re gone, they’re gone, and you’ve missed your chance to scoop a once-in-a-lifetime piece of plastic. They are no longer just for music; they are something we collect and hang on the wall. Are we just “minting” physical records?

For vinyl lovers who like to add something special to their collection, there has never been a finer time than now. But there is a growing trend of people without record players investing their cash in limited runs of their favorite artists' releases.

Is that something to love or something to loathe?

Is the comparison between NFTS and vinyl new? No, we’re about a year late to this discussion, but a year ago, vinyl wasn’t where it is now in terms of sales. There was a short run of artists releasing music only attached to NFTs, and a couple of them got more invested in the whole market. So the two have been dancing for years now. This isn’t that; it is a comparison of how we’re approaching records.

Note: If you’re thinking wtf is an NFT, it’s a non-fungible token. A "fungible" item is like a standard $10 bill, or in our case, every play on Spotify is identical and interchangeable with the next. A "non-fungible" thing, or vinyl in our example, is a signed, numbered vinyl record; it’s a unique asset that can’t be swapped for another because its specific history and "serial number" belong to you alone. And if you sold that limited-run numbered vinyl, the person who buys it will own it and no one else (or you’ll be one of 500).

Limited editions and limited runs have always been around. It’s not new, but it is more feverish now. A limited 500-run of a huge artist with something encapsulated inside the vinyl? Years ago, that wasn’t possible. Dermot Kennedy’s new album "The Weight of the Woods" could/can be purchased on vinyl with leaves inside. Chappell Roan’s "The Subway" had a "Bad World" edition filled with synthetic red hair. The list goes on. Not to mention the controversial liquid. Potentially unbalanced, potentially terrible quality, concerns about how to store them, and the chance of leaking. We’re HODLing (long-term buy-and-hold, aka Holding On for Dear Life) records; some of us have always done it, but now it is on a bigger scale.

When faced with the chance to own something limited FOMO kicks in, and next thing you know, you're $50(00) down on a vinyl with twigs in.

Let’s face it, though - they are beautiful.

We have to ask, are they to listen to? Or are they to look at and say that you own? Sure, it can be both. But is it? Really…?

Fear of missing out drives a lot of what we do, how we do it, when, and what we buy. Marketing people know that, and so do wise businesses. With vinyl sales rising and people talking about other ways to consume music, there has never been a better time to experiment with what people are willing to spend. Countdowns to vault openings and 500-print limits are too tempting. Pre-order pressings are announced long before the album drops, and we are buying on the assumption that we’ll love the album. It’s a big financial commitment, so adding ‘limited’ or ‘store exclusive’ to it is too much to ignore.

And that brings us neatly to Variants.

Sure, you can buy the black one, but what about a purple splatter import that costs triple? Do they sound the same? Sure, but do they look the same? Not at all. It is the same way that NFTs were touted: unique. The Indie exclusive, Target/Walmart exclusive, Amazon exclusive, rinse repeat across hundreds of stores. And, some fans, most notably a recent Taylor Swift fan, purchase all variants.

The content is most often identical, but the ‘skin’ is different. In the NFT world, a different 'skin' makes a digital cat rare; in our world, a 'Blood Splatter' wax makes a common album a high-value asset. The ‘skin’ ultimately dictates the value for both original sale and resellers.

It then becomes a collectable, not something to unwrap and listen to the warmth a vinyl brings, or that slight crackle on those without dust covers. Sure, with NFTs, they are mostly pointless because you couldn’t really do much with them. Vinyl is different.

If you tell a group of people you have a real 0001 minted NFT from 2020, people aren’t going to pay much attention in most circles. If you tell people you have the first pressing of a Bob Dylan, even non-vinyl heads will know that it’s pretty cool.

There’s also the big online world of unwrapping and showing off a new vinyl, and double views for something that encapsulates twigs or moss.

If you look closely, our vinyl obsession is just the NFT market without the tacky feel. Our ledger is the Kallax shelf (big thanks to IKEA for the perfectly shaped shelving). While they’re tracking tokens, we’re tracking 12x12 sleeves. NFT traits like laser eyes or gold hats are just digital versions of our variant obsession. The audio doesn't change, but the skin determines if it’s a $30 standard or a $300 grail. Whether it is Ghostly White or Blood Splatter, the plastic is the point. A verified PFP on a social profile is just the digital version of a TikTok unboxing video because both exist only to prove you were fast enough to catch the drop.

While they HODL for the moon, we keep our wax in the original shrink-wrap, stickers and all. M/M or bust. We do it just to ensure the record never actually meets a needle. They get private Discord access as their utility, while we get synthetic hair, forest leaves, and liquid fillings encapsulated in plastic. It’s the same psychological hustle of buying into a gimmick that goes beyond the art itself just to say you were one of the lucky few to own the mint.

Maybe that is too cynical. Maybe we should just be happy that more people are buying, so we have a wider choice. Is it even our business if someone buys a 1-in-500 vinyl to pin it to a wall or make it into a popcorn bowl? Is it just a new way to police how people listen to music?

Any streaming giant can fold, we can lose all our carefully curated playlists, but you can’t lose the bright red etched vinyl. That’s yours forever. And you might think it’ll never happen, but it happened to Napster. Everything went. So then that $50, $500 or whatever becomes an investment in the stuff we love.

When it comes to limited runs, should these be for people who’re actually going to listen, or does it even matter? Does a vinyl lose its meaning when it’s never used for what it was made for? Does buying a limited-edition item to put on a shelf, without a turntable, make it one of the best or most useless NFTs around?

Maybe the "meaning" has just shifted. In the NFT world, the value isn't in the JPEG; it's in the provenance, the digital proof that you own the original, and the ‘whatever’ value that you could sell it for. Vinyl has become the physical version of that proof. When you hold a 1-of-500 pressing, you aren't just holding music; you're holding a "Physical Smart Contract." It’s a verifiable piece of history that doesn't require a server to stay alive.

Vinyl might have just reached what a digital NFT never could, though. A token that looks spectacular and is coveted by the hundreds who will never touch it. A piece of ‘art’ that will stay with you when streaming services fold.

Perhaps in a world where everything digital is rented, it doesn’t matter if the record is purchased to sit on a shelf and get dusty or if the needle is dropped on it.

Maybe owning the wax without the turntable is the ultimate in consumerism. Or maybe, since the world is burning, collecting $1000 of the same thing, be it pixels or plastic, makes someone happy, and who cares?

Until next time,