Jason Notte reflects in “Where Music Gets Physical: A Boston Memoir“:

As much as music listeners dig cloud-based music and having their MP3s and channels follow them wherever they go, there’s still a desire for the physical, the ownable, the “real.” CDs don’t fit that mold anymore, as the digital files on them exist in far better form in far more accessible places. …

Vinyl, however, makes the argument for music as a religious artifact — an idol worthy of worshipping, rather than a ubiquitous score for life’s most mundane tasks. Putting music everywhere makes it permanent Muzak and makes quality an unnecessary luxury. …

With vinyl, it’s artists themselves that get the place on the pedestal. Buying records, like creating a library of books, isn’t just about entertainment or passing time. It’s about amassing knowledge and culture and putting them on display. Much as a bibliophile might reserve prime shelf space for classics or Pulitzer and Nobel winners, a record buyer reserves vinyl purchases for works of artistic, esoteric or sentimental value.