international news _ JONTY SKRUFFF _ 20th September, 2005
John Digweed Predicts the Death Of Vinyl
Bedrock boss John Digweed chatted to Skrufff this week about his upcoming label compilation Layered Sounds 2 and revealed that he's lost faith in the future of vinyl.
We can safely say that as far as the era of vinyl is concerned it's not a question of 'if' but 'when'," said John, "Which is a shame."
The superstar DJ's conclusion is particularly significant since he's long been acknowledged as one of vinyl's most enthusiastic supporters (DJ Mag dubbed him 'still a vinyl lover at heart' in their 2004 Top 100 poll) and he predicted the change is coming sooner rather than later.
"So many DJs are nowadays using only CDs that you go to clubs and you're lucky if you can find a turntable working properly," he revealed. "Because it's been so long since they've been used in some of these places that you turn up playing records and they skip and start jumping."
"I was playing with Danny Howells recently and he was telling me he was doing some festival recently and he was the first DJ to use vinyl for the whole event and no-one had set the turntables up properly before he started. So it took him a while to sort all the decks out properly. It's a shame but that's how the technology has gone," he added.
The key factor driving the change is the internet, John suggested, with digital downloads making vinyl increasingly obsolete.
"You've got to accept the fact that kids aged between 12 and 14 probably don't even know what a record looks like, or CDs either. For them, choosing vinyl over CDs doesn't make sense," he said.
"When I travel I meet so many different DJs in places like Buenos Aires, and for them to buy a Bedrock 12" vinyl, by the time you've added up the import costs, the packaging, the shipping etc, they could be paying over $15 for one 12" record. Or, they could go onto Bedrock.org.uk and buy the same track for a pound. So if you're an up and coming DJ who hasn't got a lot of gigs and not a lot of disposable cash are you going to spunk all your money on three of four records as opposed to 20 or 30 downloads?
From that economic aspect, you can't blame kids for only wanting downloads now, they can also get them instantly. Sure you can order records online, but they take two or three days whereas you can hear a track online, download it instantly and be playing it out that night," he pointed out.(Jonty Skrufff)
Layered Sounds 2 is out now on Bedrock.(Jonty Skrufff)
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Interview : John Digweed Video Interview in Tokyo (20/11/2004)
Interview : John Digweed Interview in Tokyo (20/11/2004)
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