Vinyl albums, which began to be replaced by CDs in the mid-1980s, have rebounded in recent years as enthusiasts young and old turned sentimental for the old pops, cracks and warm sounds emitting from grooves on a record.

And as sales have rebounded, music makers ranging from big acts like Jack White and the Flaming Lips to local bands in major cities have been cranking out vinyl and treating fans with added material like old-style liner notes or posters.

If bands can keep costs low, they may even be able to make extra money in the financially-strapped music business where cheap digital downloads are replacing once-lucrative CD sales.

“It’s hard to say how long it’ll last, but even if you’re 16-years-old, your parents probably have vinyl somewhere,” said Wayne Coyne, lead singer of the Flaming Lips. “So there’s probably some trigger of another time, an exotic world where this was the way you bought music.”

While vinyl records never truly became extinct from record store shelves, the current resurgence seems to have picked up pace starting around 2007. Last year, 1.9 million vinyl records sold, roughly double 2007. Industry tracker Nielsen SoundScan projects that 2.8 million units will be purchased in 2009.

A wide range of bands, from Radiohead and the Beatles to Bob Dylan and Metallica, have been shipping albums on vinyl. Radiohead, for instance, sold 61,000 vinyl records in 2008.

Turntable sales are increasing, too, suggesting vinyl is reaching new customers and not just collectors and purists.

Seeing is believing

Vinyl’s renaissance springs from both musicians and fans longing for something more tangible than just listening to music on a digital file, said Paul Simcoe, co-owner of Toronto’s Criminal Records.

“I’ll support an artist to the end of time,” he said. “But I still have a huge problem buying something I can’t see.”

The Flaming Lips’ Coyne said vinyl appeals to fans’ senses in ways digital downloads can’t by providing colorful notes, posters or other visual items that downloads just don’t have. In fact, his band has even packaged DVDs with vinyl albums.

Trevor Larocque, co-founder of Toronto’s Paper Bag Records, said vinyl gives artists the chance to offer fans distinct products. His label’s records are made in limited amounts of 200 or 300, and the record sleeves are silk-screened with exclusive artwork.

Another technique to lure online listeners is offering memberships in fan clubs that include shipments of unreleased, vinyl recordings, which is what Nashville-based Third Man Records, founded by the White Stripes’ Jack White, is doing.

“That, for us, is a really strong way of reaching out to a digital generation,” said label executive Ben Swank.

In the case of Toronto-based band the Diableros, they released a new EP, “Old Story, Fresh Road,” digitally and on vinyl, forgoing CDs which they felt were unnecessary.

But releasing an album on vinyl presents musicians with challenges that don’t exist for CDs or digital files, said David Read of Vinyl Record Guru, a manufacturing outfit on Vancouver Island, Canada. Reuters

HOW VINYL RECORD SALES STACK UP

CD sales are off 13 per cent in 2009 heading into the lucrative holiday shopping season, after a 20 per cent annual drop in 2008 from the year before, but sales of vinyl records are bucking that trend.

Vinyl record sales reached 1.9 million units in 2008 and are on track to sell nearly 2.8 million units in 2009, according to industry tracker Nielsen SoundScan. Those numbers account only for stores that report to Nielsen and not smaller record shops or albums sold at concerts.

Though vinyl record sales have momentum, they still make up only 1 per cent of total album sales tracked by Nielsen SoundScan.

BEST-SELLING ARTISTS OF 2008

The top five best-selling artists on vinyl in 2008 were a mix of those who released new albums that year, like Radiohead and Guns N’ Roses, and catalog artists like the Beatles with popular older releases. These ten artists sold 225,000 LPs in 2008, or 13 per cent of all vinyl sold that year.

1. Radiohead: 61,000 copies sold

2. Metallica: 40,000 copies sold

3. Beatles: 20,000 copies sold

4. Elliot Smith: 18,000 copies sold

5. Bob Dylan: 15,000 copies sold

BEST-SELLING ALBUMS OF 2008

In 2008, slightly fewer than 13,000 vinyl records sold at least one copy, while nearly 400 sold at least 1,000 copies and accounted for 50 per cent of total vinyl sales. Here are the five best-selling vinyl records in 2008.

1. Radiohead — In Rainbows: 25,800 copies sold

2. The Beatles — Abbey Road: 16,500 copies sold

3. Guns N’ Roses — Chinese Democracy: 13,600 copies sold

4. The B-52s — Funplex: 12,800 copies sold

5. Portishead — Third: 12,300 copies sold