Putting a premium on music
Exploring the vinyl revival in the Philippines
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/prbt.35003Keywords:
Philippines, popular music, revival, technostalgia, vinylAbstract
The twenty-first century has seen a revival of the vinyl record in many parts of the world. Based on ethnographic research, I investigate its so-far unexplored resurgence in Metro Manila, the capital region of the Philippines, contending that vinyl is charged with social meanings and that revivals reimagine the past for the present. I examine vinyl's manifold social meanings and the reasons for its newfound popularity through a multidimensional enquiry into vinyl's status as a 'premium product' in the Philippine context. First, I consider developments in the music industry and socio-economic factors playing into the value and status of vinyl. Second, I probe vinyl's symbolic potential as a marker of social class, cosmopolitanism and urban lifestyle. Third, drawing on notions of technostalgia and vinyl's multisensory affordances, I examine how vinyl's status as a premium product is established and reinforced by the lifestyle stores Satchmi and Heima, which market records and their associated appliances. Lastly, I show how vinyl's status is actively employed to promote local independent music and to counter its marginalization in the Philippine mediascape.
References
ADB (Asian Development Bank). 2010. ‘Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacific. 41st Edition’. Mandaluyong: Asian Development Bank. Online at https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/27726/key-indicators-2010.pdf (accessed 9 June 2017).
—2012. ‘Basic 2012 Statistics’. Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department. Development Economics and Indicators Division. Online at https://www.adb.org/publications/basic-statistics-2012 (accessed 26 March 2018).
—2014. ‘Basic 2014 Statistics’. Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department. Development Economics and Indicators Division. Online at https://www.adb.org/publications/basic-statistics-2014 (accessed 26 March 2018).
—2016. ‘Basic 2016 Statistics’. Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department. Development Economics and Indicators Division. Online at https://www.adb.org/publications/basic-statistics-2016 (accessed 26 March 2018).
—2017. ‘Basic 2017 Statistics’. Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department. Development Economics and Indicators Division. Online at https://www.adb.org/publications/basic-statistics-2017 (accessed 26 March 2018).
Albert, Jose Ramon G., Raymond E. Gaspar and Martin Joseph M. Raymundo. 2015. ‘Why We Should Pay Attention to the Middle Class’. Philippine Institute for Development Studies, Policy Notes, No. 2015–13: 1–10. Online at https://dirp3.pids.gov.ph/webportal/CDN/PUBLICATIONS/pidspn1513.pdf (accessed 26 March 2018).
Allington, Daniel, Byron Dueck and Anna Jordanous. 2015. ‘Networks of Value in Electronic Music: Sound Cloud, London, and the Importance of Place’. Cultural Trends 23/4: 211–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/09548963.2015.1066073
Appadurai, Arjun. 1986. ‘Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value’. In The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. Arjun Appadurai, 3–63. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511819582.003
—1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press.
Bartmanski, Dominik, and Ian Woodward. 2014. ‘The Vinyl: The Analogue Medium in the Age of Digital Reproduction’. Journal of Consumer Culture 25/5: 1–25.
—2015. Vinyl: The Analogue Record in the Digital Age. London and New York: Bloomsbury.
—2016. ‘Vinyl Record: A Cultural Icon’. Consumption Markets & Culture 21/2: 1–7.
Bernard, Russell. 2006. Research Methods in Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches, 4th edn. Lanham/New York: Altamira.
Bersales, Lisa Grace S. 2016. ‘Average Family Income in 2015 is Estimated at 22 Thousand Pesos Monthly (Results from the 2015 Family Income and Expenditure Survey)’. NSCB (Philippine Statistics Authority—National Statistical Coordination Board). Online at https://tinyurl.com/yal2werh (accessed 8 March 2017).
Bijsterveld, Karin, and José van Dijck. 2009. ‘Introduction’. In Sound Souvenirs: Audio Technologies, Memory and Cultural Practices, ed. Karin Bijsterveld and José van Dijck, 11–24. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. https://doi.org/10.5117/9789089641328
Bithell, Caroline, and Juniper Hill. 2015. ‘An Introduction to Music Revival as Concept, Cultural Process, and Medium of Change’. In The Oxford Handbook of Music Revival, ed. Caroline Bithell and Juniper Hill, 3–42. New York: Oxford University Press.
Boym, Svetlana. 2001. The Future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic Books.
Braun, Hans-Joachim. 2009. ‘Pulled out of Thin Air? The Revival of the Theremin’. In Sound Souvenirs: Audio Technologies, Memory and Cultural Practices, ed. Karin Bijsterveld and José van Dijck, 139–51. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Canave-Dioquino, Corazon, Ramón P. Santos, and José Maceda. 2008. ‘The Philippines’. In The Garland Handbook of Southeast Asian Music, 415–45. New York: Routledge.
Choi, Narae. 2016. ‘Metro Manila through the Gentrification Lens: Disparities in Urban Planning and Displacement Risks’. Urban Studies 53/2: 577–92. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098014543032
CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). 2018. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/rp.html (accessed 5 April 2018).
Dale, Pete. 2008. ‘It was Easy, it was Cheap, So What? Reconsidering the DIY Principle of Punk and Indie Music’. Popular Music History 3/2: 171–93.
de Leon, Anna Leah Sarabia. 1980. ‘Pinoy Rock’. International Popular Culture 1: 33–37.
DeWalt, Kathleen M., and Billie R. DeWalt. 2011. Participant Observation: A Guide for Fieldworkers, 2nd edn. Lanham/New York: Altamira.
Demers, Joanna. 2017. ‘Cassette Tape Revival as Creative Anachronism’. Twentieth Century Music 14/1: 109–117. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1478572217000093
Dietler, Michael. 2010. ‘Consumption’. In The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies, ed. Dan Hicks and Mary C. Beaudry, 207–226. New York: Oxford University Press.
Eley, Craig. 2011. ‘Technostalgia and the Resurgence of Cassette Culture’. In The Politics of Post-9/11 Music: Sound, Trauma, and the Music Industry in the Time of Terror, ed. Joseph P. Fisher and Brian Flota, 43–55. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Gimenez-Maceda, Teresita. 1980. ‘Popular Music’. International Popular Culture 1: 24–32.
Hine, Christine. 2015. Ethnography for the Internet: Embedded, Embodied and Everyday. London/Oxford: Bloomsbury.
IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry). 2001. The Recording Industry in Numbers. London: IFPI.
—2013. The Recording Industry in Numbers. London: IFPI.
Journal of the Art of Record Production. 2015. Special Issue: The Good Old Days? Negotiating Quality, Mythology and Technostalgia in Contemporary Music Production issue 9.
Katz, Mark. 2015. ‘The Persistence of Analogue’. In Musical Listening in the Age of Technological Reproduction, ed. Gianmario Borio, 275–87. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Kjus, Yngvar. 2015. ‘Reclaiming the Music: The Power of Local and Physical Music Distribution in the Age of Global Online Services’. New Media & Society 18/9: 2116–132. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444815580414
Kopytoff, Igor. 1986. ‘The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process’. In The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. Arjun Appadurai, 64–91. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511819582.004
Macy, Amy, Clyde Rolston, Paul Allen and Tom Hutchinson, eds. 2016. Record Label Marketing: How Music Companies Brand and Market Artists in the Digital Era, 3rd edn. Abingdon/New York: Focal Press.
Michel, Boris. 2010. ‘Going Global, Veiling the Poor: Global City Imaginaries in Metro Manila’. Philippine Studies 58/3: 383–406.
NEDA (National Economic and Development Authority). 2015. ‘The Philippines Services Sector and APEC’. Online at http://www.neda.gov.ph/2015/11/20/the-philippine-services-sector-and-apec (accessed 9 October 2017).
Nielsen. 2014. ‘Philippines Retains Top 3 Ranking as Most Optimistic Market Globally in Third Quarter’. Online at https://tinyurl.com/y797pged (accessed 4 April 2018).
—2016. ‘Philippine Consumer Confidence Is Still a Bright Spot among Emerging Markets in Southeast Asia in Q1 2016’. Online at https://tinyurl.com/y82evb7z (accessed 4 April 2018).
Ortega, Andre C. 2016. ‘Manila’s Metropolitan Landscape of Gentrification: Global Urban Development, Accumulation by Dispossession and Neoliberal Warfare against Informality’. Geoforum 70: 35–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2016.02.002
Osborne, Richard. 2012. Vinyl: A History of the Analogue Record. Farnham, MD: Ashgate.
Perez, Josie B. 2016. ‘Poverty Incidence among Filipinos Registered at 21.6% in 2015’. NSCB (Philippine Statistics Authority—National Statistical Coordination Board). Online at http://psa.gov.ph/poverty-press-releases (accessed 8 March 2017).
Pickering, Michael, and Emily Keightley. 2006. ‘The Modalities of Nostalgia’. Current Sociology 54/6: 919–41. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392106068458
Pinch, Trevor, and David Reinecke. 2009. ‘Technostalgia: How Old Gear Lives on in New Music’. In Sound Souvenirs: Audio Technologies, Memory and Cultural Practices, ed. Karin Bijsterveld and José van Dijck, 152–66. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
PSA (Philippine Statistics Authority). 2008. ‘2006 FIES (Statistical Tables)’, Philippine Statistics Authority. Online at https://tinyurl.com/yaee8p8c (accessed 31 March 2018).
—2013. ‘Statistical Tables on 2012 Family Income and Expenditure Survey’, Philippine Statistics Authority. Online at https://tinyurl.com/y9ufq93v (accessed 31 March 2018).
—2016. ‘Statistical Tables on 2015 Family Income and Expenditure Survey’, Philippine Statistics Authority. Online at https://tinyurl.com/y9bvczqg (accessed 31 March 2018).
Roderos, Ray Simon. 2013. ‘Reshaping Metro Manila: Gentrification, Displacement, and the Challenge Facing the Urban Capital’. Social Transformations: Journal of the Global South 1/2: 79–103.
Satchmi. 2017a. ‘About Us’. Online at https://www.satchmi.com/about.php (accessed 10 October 2017).
—2017b. ‘Motorino’. Online at https://www.satchmi.com/motorino (accessed 10 October 2017).
Schoonmaker, Trevor, ed. 2010. Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl. Durham: Duke University Press.
Schoop, Monika. 2017. Independent Music and Digital Technology in the Philippines. Abingdon/New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315403267
Shatkin, Gavin. 2008. ‘The City and the Bottom Line: Urban Megaprojects and the Privatization of Planning in Southeast Asia’. Environment and Planning A 40/2: 383–401. https://doi.org/10.1068/a38439
Straw, Will. 2009. ‘The Music CD and its Ends’. Design and Culture 1/1: 79–91. https://doi.org/10.2752/175470709787375751
Throsby, David. 2011. ‘Cultural Capital’. In A Handbook of Cultural Economics, 2nd edn, ed. Ruth Towse, 142–46. Cheltenham: Elgar.
Woodward, Ian. 2007. Understanding Material Culture. Los Angeles: SAGE. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446278987
Yochim, Emily Chivers, and Megan Biddinger. 2008. ‘“It Kind of Gives You That Vintage Feel”: Vinyl Records and the Trope of Death’. Media, Culture & Society 30/2: 183–95. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443707086860
Yson, Danny. 2003. ‘The Recording Industry at a Glance’. Online at http://www.pari.com.ph/articles_industry.html (accessed 10 October 2017).
—2012. ‘Basic 2012 Statistics’. Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department. Development Economics and Indicators Division. Online at https://www.adb.org/publications/basic-statistics-2012 (accessed 26 March 2018).
—2014. ‘Basic 2014 Statistics’. Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department. Development Economics and Indicators Division. Online at https://www.adb.org/publications/basic-statistics-2014 (accessed 26 March 2018).
—2016. ‘Basic 2016 Statistics’. Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department. Development Economics and Indicators Division. Online at https://www.adb.org/publications/basic-statistics-2016 (accessed 26 March 2018).
—2017. ‘Basic 2017 Statistics’. Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department. Development Economics and Indicators Division. Online at https://www.adb.org/publications/basic-statistics-2017 (accessed 26 March 2018).
Albert, Jose Ramon G., Raymond E. Gaspar and Martin Joseph M. Raymundo. 2015. ‘Why We Should Pay Attention to the Middle Class’. Philippine Institute for Development Studies, Policy Notes, No. 2015–13: 1–10. Online at https://dirp3.pids.gov.ph/webportal/CDN/PUBLICATIONS/pidspn1513.pdf (accessed 26 March 2018).
Allington, Daniel, Byron Dueck and Anna Jordanous. 2015. ‘Networks of Value in Electronic Music: Sound Cloud, London, and the Importance of Place’. Cultural Trends 23/4: 211–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/09548963.2015.1066073
Appadurai, Arjun. 1986. ‘Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value’. In The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. Arjun Appadurai, 3–63. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511819582.003
—1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press.
Bartmanski, Dominik, and Ian Woodward. 2014. ‘The Vinyl: The Analogue Medium in the Age of Digital Reproduction’. Journal of Consumer Culture 25/5: 1–25.
—2015. Vinyl: The Analogue Record in the Digital Age. London and New York: Bloomsbury.
—2016. ‘Vinyl Record: A Cultural Icon’. Consumption Markets & Culture 21/2: 1–7.
Bernard, Russell. 2006. Research Methods in Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches, 4th edn. Lanham/New York: Altamira.
Bersales, Lisa Grace S. 2016. ‘Average Family Income in 2015 is Estimated at 22 Thousand Pesos Monthly (Results from the 2015 Family Income and Expenditure Survey)’. NSCB (Philippine Statistics Authority—National Statistical Coordination Board). Online at https://tinyurl.com/yal2werh (accessed 8 March 2017).
Bijsterveld, Karin, and José van Dijck. 2009. ‘Introduction’. In Sound Souvenirs: Audio Technologies, Memory and Cultural Practices, ed. Karin Bijsterveld and José van Dijck, 11–24. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. https://doi.org/10.5117/9789089641328
Bithell, Caroline, and Juniper Hill. 2015. ‘An Introduction to Music Revival as Concept, Cultural Process, and Medium of Change’. In The Oxford Handbook of Music Revival, ed. Caroline Bithell and Juniper Hill, 3–42. New York: Oxford University Press.
Boym, Svetlana. 2001. The Future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic Books.
Braun, Hans-Joachim. 2009. ‘Pulled out of Thin Air? The Revival of the Theremin’. In Sound Souvenirs: Audio Technologies, Memory and Cultural Practices, ed. Karin Bijsterveld and José van Dijck, 139–51. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Canave-Dioquino, Corazon, Ramón P. Santos, and José Maceda. 2008. ‘The Philippines’. In The Garland Handbook of Southeast Asian Music, 415–45. New York: Routledge.
Choi, Narae. 2016. ‘Metro Manila through the Gentrification Lens: Disparities in Urban Planning and Displacement Risks’. Urban Studies 53/2: 577–92. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098014543032
CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). 2018. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/rp.html (accessed 5 April 2018).
Dale, Pete. 2008. ‘It was Easy, it was Cheap, So What? Reconsidering the DIY Principle of Punk and Indie Music’. Popular Music History 3/2: 171–93.
de Leon, Anna Leah Sarabia. 1980. ‘Pinoy Rock’. International Popular Culture 1: 33–37.
DeWalt, Kathleen M., and Billie R. DeWalt. 2011. Participant Observation: A Guide for Fieldworkers, 2nd edn. Lanham/New York: Altamira.
Demers, Joanna. 2017. ‘Cassette Tape Revival as Creative Anachronism’. Twentieth Century Music 14/1: 109–117. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1478572217000093
Dietler, Michael. 2010. ‘Consumption’. In The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies, ed. Dan Hicks and Mary C. Beaudry, 207–226. New York: Oxford University Press.
Eley, Craig. 2011. ‘Technostalgia and the Resurgence of Cassette Culture’. In The Politics of Post-9/11 Music: Sound, Trauma, and the Music Industry in the Time of Terror, ed. Joseph P. Fisher and Brian Flota, 43–55. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Gimenez-Maceda, Teresita. 1980. ‘Popular Music’. International Popular Culture 1: 24–32.
Hine, Christine. 2015. Ethnography for the Internet: Embedded, Embodied and Everyday. London/Oxford: Bloomsbury.
IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry). 2001. The Recording Industry in Numbers. London: IFPI.
—2013. The Recording Industry in Numbers. London: IFPI.
Journal of the Art of Record Production. 2015. Special Issue: The Good Old Days? Negotiating Quality, Mythology and Technostalgia in Contemporary Music Production issue 9.
Katz, Mark. 2015. ‘The Persistence of Analogue’. In Musical Listening in the Age of Technological Reproduction, ed. Gianmario Borio, 275–87. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Kjus, Yngvar. 2015. ‘Reclaiming the Music: The Power of Local and Physical Music Distribution in the Age of Global Online Services’. New Media & Society 18/9: 2116–132. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444815580414
Kopytoff, Igor. 1986. ‘The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process’. In The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. Arjun Appadurai, 64–91. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511819582.004
Macy, Amy, Clyde Rolston, Paul Allen and Tom Hutchinson, eds. 2016. Record Label Marketing: How Music Companies Brand and Market Artists in the Digital Era, 3rd edn. Abingdon/New York: Focal Press.
Michel, Boris. 2010. ‘Going Global, Veiling the Poor: Global City Imaginaries in Metro Manila’. Philippine Studies 58/3: 383–406.
NEDA (National Economic and Development Authority). 2015. ‘The Philippines Services Sector and APEC’. Online at http://www.neda.gov.ph/2015/11/20/the-philippine-services-sector-and-apec (accessed 9 October 2017).
Nielsen. 2014. ‘Philippines Retains Top 3 Ranking as Most Optimistic Market Globally in Third Quarter’. Online at https://tinyurl.com/y797pged (accessed 4 April 2018).
—2016. ‘Philippine Consumer Confidence Is Still a Bright Spot among Emerging Markets in Southeast Asia in Q1 2016’. Online at https://tinyurl.com/y82evb7z (accessed 4 April 2018).
Ortega, Andre C. 2016. ‘Manila’s Metropolitan Landscape of Gentrification: Global Urban Development, Accumulation by Dispossession and Neoliberal Warfare against Informality’. Geoforum 70: 35–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2016.02.002
Osborne, Richard. 2012. Vinyl: A History of the Analogue Record. Farnham, MD: Ashgate.
Perez, Josie B. 2016. ‘Poverty Incidence among Filipinos Registered at 21.6% in 2015’. NSCB (Philippine Statistics Authority—National Statistical Coordination Board). Online at http://psa.gov.ph/poverty-press-releases (accessed 8 March 2017).
Pickering, Michael, and Emily Keightley. 2006. ‘The Modalities of Nostalgia’. Current Sociology 54/6: 919–41. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392106068458
Pinch, Trevor, and David Reinecke. 2009. ‘Technostalgia: How Old Gear Lives on in New Music’. In Sound Souvenirs: Audio Technologies, Memory and Cultural Practices, ed. Karin Bijsterveld and José van Dijck, 152–66. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
PSA (Philippine Statistics Authority). 2008. ‘2006 FIES (Statistical Tables)’, Philippine Statistics Authority. Online at https://tinyurl.com/yaee8p8c (accessed 31 March 2018).
—2013. ‘Statistical Tables on 2012 Family Income and Expenditure Survey’, Philippine Statistics Authority. Online at https://tinyurl.com/y9ufq93v (accessed 31 March 2018).
—2016. ‘Statistical Tables on 2015 Family Income and Expenditure Survey’, Philippine Statistics Authority. Online at https://tinyurl.com/y9bvczqg (accessed 31 March 2018).
Roderos, Ray Simon. 2013. ‘Reshaping Metro Manila: Gentrification, Displacement, and the Challenge Facing the Urban Capital’. Social Transformations: Journal of the Global South 1/2: 79–103.
Satchmi. 2017a. ‘About Us’. Online at https://www.satchmi.com/about.php (accessed 10 October 2017).
—2017b. ‘Motorino’. Online at https://www.satchmi.com/motorino (accessed 10 October 2017).
Schoonmaker, Trevor, ed. 2010. Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl. Durham: Duke University Press.
Schoop, Monika. 2017. Independent Music and Digital Technology in the Philippines. Abingdon/New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315403267
Shatkin, Gavin. 2008. ‘The City and the Bottom Line: Urban Megaprojects and the Privatization of Planning in Southeast Asia’. Environment and Planning A 40/2: 383–401. https://doi.org/10.1068/a38439
Straw, Will. 2009. ‘The Music CD and its Ends’. Design and Culture 1/1: 79–91. https://doi.org/10.2752/175470709787375751
Throsby, David. 2011. ‘Cultural Capital’. In A Handbook of Cultural Economics, 2nd edn, ed. Ruth Towse, 142–46. Cheltenham: Elgar.
Woodward, Ian. 2007. Understanding Material Culture. Los Angeles: SAGE. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446278987
Yochim, Emily Chivers, and Megan Biddinger. 2008. ‘“It Kind of Gives You That Vintage Feel”: Vinyl Records and the Trope of Death’. Media, Culture & Society 30/2: 183–95. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443707086860
Yson, Danny. 2003. ‘The Recording Industry at a Glance’. Online at http://www.pari.com.ph/articles_industry.html (accessed 10 October 2017).
Published
2018-12-29
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Schoop, M. (2018). Putting a premium on music: Exploring the vinyl revival in the Philippines. Perfect Beat, 19(1), 8-31. https://doi.org/10.1558/prbt.35003
