The Vinyl Countdown: The Album from LP to iPod and Back Again - Paperback

by Travis Elborough (Author)

VINYL MAY BE FINAL NAIL IN CD'S COFFIN ran the headline in a Wired magazine article in October 2007.

Ever since the arrival of the long--playing record in 1948, the album has acted as the soundtrack to our lives. Record collections--even on a CD or iPod-are personal treasures, revealing our loves, errors in judgment, and lapses in taste.

In The Vinyl Countdown, Travis Elborough explores the way in which particular albums are deeply embedded in cultural history or so ubiquitous as to be almost invisible. While music itself has experienced several different movements over the past sixty years, the album has remained a constant. But the way we listen to music has changed in the last ten years. In the age of the iPod, when we can download an infinite number of single tracks instantaneously, does the concept of the album mean anything?

Elborough moves chronologically through relevant periods, letting the story of the LP, certain genres, youth cults, and topics like sleeve designs, shops, drugs, and education unfurl as he goes along. The Vinyl Countdown is a brilliant piece of popular history, an idiosyncratic tribute to a much-loved part of our shared consciousness, and a celebration of the joy of records.

Author Biography

Travis Elborough is an author and social commentator. His books include The Bus We Loved, The Long-Player Goodbye, published as The Vinyl Countdown in the Unites States; Wish You Were Here, a survey of the British beside the seaside and A Walk in the Park.

The Atlas of Improbable Places, his collaboration with the cartographer Alan Horsfield, was saluted by Monocle magazine for "making the world feel bigger." He has also compiled such anthologies as Our History of the 20th Century: As Told in Diaries and Letters to Change the World: From Pankhurst to Orwell. A regular contributor to international print and broadcast media, he has penned articles on all aspects of travel and culture, from pirates in the Caribbean to donkeys at the British seaside.