"Vinyl, vinyl, we have never forsaken thee!" - The New Rock Kids

All over the news both on TV and on the internet, there suddenly many articles on the "return of vinyl". CNN cites that Best Buy has decided to carry vinyl again. Others say that CD sales are down to late 1970s level sales and dropping fast, while at the same time vinyl record sales are back up almost into the early 1980s levels in sales and still climbing. Indie labels are fast abandoning releasing any more CDs, and bringing back vinyl. Major labels are reissuing deluxe vinyl albums of all their "cool" catalog pieces. Records stores around the country are stocking turntables again. Used record stores are dumping all their CDs at bargain bin prices and gobbling up all the vinyl they can get and restocking their shelves after almost of decade of phasing out their vinyl.

What's going? Well, simple, as many in the marketing business know and the general public is just finding out. The "new" under 18 year olds are heavy into vinyl records! How did this happen? Well, people currently in the late 30s to late 40s brought their then -10 to 12 year old kids with them to all the reunion shows that bands like Black Sabbath, Cheap Trick, Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, Sex Pistols, NY Dolls, and their kids liked it! They loved the Rock & Roll music that they heard for the first time. And these kids are different from other generations because of it - they LIKE their parents and they soon took over not only their parents record collections, but their clothes, fanzine collections, and more! By the time these kids were 14-16 years old, they were going to Bad Brains, Circle Jerks, Adolescents, 45 Grave, reunion shows with their parents.

Then these kids Punk Rock - Old School Punk! These new rock Kids are considered to be one of the first to NOT have a generation gap with their parents. Not only that, but they hate the "EMO" music of the generation before them because of the "dysfunctional family" message in their lyrics and music. Those people grew up on stuff like Korn, Slipknot, and Limp Biscuit, something that the new kids do not relate to at all. Nope, the new kids like both Rock and Punk and consider one thing, listening equally to The Ramones as well as Iron Maiden.

Not only that, but what makes the New Rock Kids different is that they have never know what it was like to not have the Internet at their disposal. Marketing people called these kids "The Maturi-Teens" because not only do the share the popular culture and values of their parent, but they are share family decisions such as where to vacation, where to find the best prices on household items, etc, because these kids immediately head for the Internet and get the best information the fasted way, making them important members of the family whose input counts very much. These kids scour Ebay in search of the one record missing in their parent's record collection. Some even look for records of the bands that their parents actually once played in!

What's interesting is that these kids are just as likely to go online and purchase an Electric Frankenstein vinyl record (cause their parents have at least one of their records) as they are to grab a Led Zeppelin or AC/DC vinyl record. Many new bands such a Damone, Airbourne, Jay Reatard, and others are enjoying much popularity and brisk vinyl sales amongst the young teens because they mix together both 70s and 80s Punk and Rock in their sound. Also, these new teens keep up with what's cool though social networking sites like Myspace.com, where young bands have sold over 10,000 records just to their online "friends" at the site. Also, Youtube.com is a very popular means for these teens to see long lost video for the many vintage and modern Punk and Rock bands that they adore. Many young bands use both these sites as their main means of meeting new fans and selling their wares on a worldwide scale that was not possible just a decade ago.

In a climate where many Major and Indie label bands have disappeared along with rapidly dwindling CD sales, other bands continue to thrive, thanks to their steady dedication to releasing vinyl records. Indie Punk Rock & Roll bands like The Supersuckers, Electric Frankenstein, the Dwarves, and others have been able to exist for almost 20 years on the strength of their worldwide vinyl sales. For example, over the last 16 years, Electric Frankenstein, a New Jersey based group, has always released a steady flow of 7" singles, 10" EPs, and 12" LPs all over the world, with vinyl releases appearing on over 40 different record labels, ranging from Sub Pop to Victory Records.

While CD based Indie record labels have been going out of business at a fast pace, within the past two years of climbing vinyl record sales many new Indie vinyl releasing record labels have emerged worldwide, such as Zodiac Records, Jailhouse Records, In the Red, Get Hip, Gearhead, Acetate, and Reptilian Records in the USA; Lonestar, People Like You, No Bollocks, Bootleg Booze, Demolition Derby, Tornado Ride Records, and many others in Europe, and others more in Japan, China, and Australia/New Zealand as well. By October of this year, not only will Electric Frankenstein release a double gatefold vinyl album release coupling two of their latest albums "Burn Bright Burn Fast" and "Super Kool" on the Jailhouse Records label, but they also will release a special DVD release spanning their long career called "Legacy of Electricity - The Electric Frankenstein Retrospective". Not only that, but the band will continue to release their steady schedule of vinyl 7" singles on labels such as Zodiac Records in the USA and No Bollocks in Germany. Recently, the bands released a special collection of non-LP tracks for Europe on Tornado Ride Records, titled "Dead and Back" (their in joke about vinyl records themselves, which are "dead and back"). Other newer Myspace.com based young bands, such as The Kung Fu Killers went straight to vinyl with their first releases, and received raving reviews. Now they are poised to soon release a set of 5 different singles with interlocking comic book style artwork via the Zodiac Records label, something that would have been awkward, if even worth doing, in the CD format.

Such bands have long championed the vinyl format and have taken great care in having fantastic looking artwork on their record sleeves to entice young people into buying them. All of the best known popular culture artists such as Art Chantry, Kozik, Coop, Alan Forbes, Johnny Ace, and hundreds more have gladly done record covers for the band. So much so that recently Dark Horse Comics, one of the largest comic book companies in the USA, even published a 200 page book exhibiting over a decade of their record cover and poster art. With over 100 different vinyl record releases all over the world from the USA to Europe to Australia to Japan, over the past 16 years, this has helped bands like Electric Frankenstein sell hundreds of thousands of vinyl records worldwide.

There is a lot of artwork to be seen on their many record covers. Vinyl records are attractive to young teens because of the much larger space that they have on their covers versus the tiny cover art of compact discs. Such bands have never had to worry about the slump in CD sales since they were on of the main impetus for the comeback of vinyl records in the first place, enjoyed by two generations of Indie Rock music fans. Even large Indie record labels distributed by major labels such as Matador Records are releasing a single a month by acts that were known for selling a good number of vinyl on their previous labels, such as Jay Reatard (previously on the In the Red label), with an end of the year compilation album featuring all the singles on one record.

Vinyl might be back, unusually enough, and outselling CDs at a rapid pace, but many Indie bands have never left the vinyl format in the first place