The age of browsing record shops, finding the next song’s groove and hearing two sides (literally) of an album was dead…or so we thought.

“This Debussy album I have has a paint splotch on the track Claire de Lune. Even though it’s messed up, it’s still one of the most important things to me,” senior Madison McGinley said.

Vinyl albums have made a comeback recently and students are taking more interest in material albums rather than digital music downloads.

“It’s clear that vinyl has slowly infiltrated people’s interests,” senior Hannah Melin said.

The ways that collectors get started can range from a parents’ influence to wandering into a record shop and picking up an appealing album.

“My sister’s boyfriend found a broken record player in an abandoned warehouse,” McGinley said. “I couldn’t fix it in the end, but that’s definitely what sparked my interest.”

Even more interesting is why one finds it necessary to listen to records. For some it is just white noise whilst doing homework, but for others it is like musical therapy.

“I spend half an hour each night just listening to my albums,” senior Danielle Neeld said.

A certain balance between vinyl and digital music formatting is present, however.

“There are some songs I could never listen to on vinyl and some I could never listen to digitally,” Melin said.

Portability is one area that digital outscores record players. Melin, however, feels that digitally shuffling music has killed the purpose of the order of songs in an album.

“During the times that vinyl was the most popular; musicians arranged songs in a certain order for a reason,” Melin said. “You’d never get that with shuffle.”

In the face of those who truly enjoy vinyl as a format, there are those who are “just posers trying to be hipsters and [wanting] something to brag about,” according to Neeld.

“The sad fact is that vinyl’s almost had a negative way of coming back,” senior Ace Jennings said.

Despite this, it is evident that the joy vinyl brings students is special. The rise of vinyl proves that things of the past can still be popular today.

“Collecting vinyl is a rewarding hobby. I’m always looking forward to my next album,” Jennings said.