Vinyl In Topics Of Color
As I was looking back into my collection which has grown a bit over the past few years. I started to realize that more often than not, the editions that attract me are those of colorful records. Billie Eilish’s Don’t Smile at Me in bright red, K-12 in baby pink, Motown 1’s in bright gold. There’s something about getting unique colors and patterns on a vinyl record. Funnily enough I started writing this post a few weeks ago and Billie actually brought up a few things on the matter. On her insta story, she complained about the commercialization of colored vinyl records. She disagreed with the artists who released the same album record in different colors. This way, the consumer buys the album for the display aspect rather than the music itself. Now do I find it funny that she is bringing this up when Billie has done this before, very. But I do agree she is the lesser of two evils when it comes to it.
But let’s move away from the gossip in the celebrity world for a moment and first get an idea of how color vinyls are made. To be more specific, how vinyl records are made.
It all starts with a material called lacquer, like nail polish basically. The lacquer is heated and cooled while the music waves are scratched onto the surface. Once the lacquer record is done, it is sent to be turned into molds. Once these molds are ready they are attached to a press. This is where the vinyl is placed. The best sounding records will always be the black records according to WIRED’s video on the process. I am no expert on this but I do feel this to be true when listening to my mom’s old ABBA records, but in part it might just be because of my player with its wonky needle. So the way the fun color patterns are created is by putting different pieces of the material and letting the press do its thing. Once the material is flattened down with the molded press, any excess material will be trimmed off. After that, you have a complete record ready to be sold. This is a very overly simplified explanation of the process but there is so much more to it, especially when we talk about vinyls such as the liquid filled ones, or those with more unique things on them such as hair and blood.
But okay let's get back to the gossip. So the reason billie decided to point this out is because of a release made by Taylor Swift. Now, I will say I am not a swiftie. Hopefully I didn't lose many of you, but I do enjoy 2-3 of her songs. I also do respect her for what she has achieved this past year of tours of re-releasing her work. Okay, now here is the critique. As she is re-releasing her albums, vinyls are being made as well. After doing a deep dive into the albums coming out more recently I started to see what billie was talking about. I think the best examples are the Midnights album as well as 1989 Taylor’s Version. Each of them have 5 different colors to choose from. Now you might say, well hey that just means more selection, doesn’t mean you have to buy all the colors. Well, here is where the trick is. If you buy 4 of those 5 colors, you can get the clock kit and put them together to create an actual clock with the albums.
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