Vinyl Nation
On the heels of At the Video Store comes Vinyl Nation, another love letter to a niche corner of the entertainment industry.
But unlike its amateurish, directionless and occasionally confounding predecessor, the music format documentary by Christopher Boone and Kevin Smokler is a far more vibrant, insightful, professional and purposeful exploration that benefits from spotlighting a significantly more prosperous business sector — yet does does so with similar structural flaws.
Opening with the thrill of Record Store Day at Mills Record Company in Kansas City, Vinyl Nation offers an engaging mix of the history of vinyl records, plus insights from industry members and partners, along with an excessive amount of personal reflections by fans of analog music.
Among their overly widespread subtopics, Boone and Smokler investigate how records are made and pressed, nicely demystifying the process, and passionately chronicle vinyl’s unique rise and fall in popularity over the past almost century.
Their interviews with factory owners, rabid collectors, indie record label executives, journalists, DJs, and Instagram celebrities are consistently well-lit and meaningfully edited with a playful range of camera angles and zooms that foster a strong connection to the person speaking.
Though Vinyl Nation sadly doesn’t visit Asheville, the filmmakers check in with Chris Livengood from Winston-Salem’s Ember Audio + Design and Merge Records co-founder (and Superchunk bassist) Laura Ballance in Durham, who prove to be two of its most well-spoken participants.
Toss in memorable audiophile and record store depictions in such films as Boogie Nights, Ghost World, and, of course, High Fidelity, plus discussions about the various shortcomings of the format and the white male-dominated industry subsets that support it, and the documentary is on a compelling, well-informed roll for just over an hour.
But like an album that dilutes its strong start with frustrating back-end filler, Vinyl Nation’s winning approach runs out of steam, becomes little more than a string of enthusiasts gushing, and starts sounding like, well, a broken record.
In this repetitive final side, an occasional fun and/or sweet anecdote arises, but new substantial insights are all but absent. Still, these heartfelt, often emotional reflections foster an appreciation for the format and music in general, making it all but impossible to resist heading to one’s turntable and dropping the needle on a cherished album after the credits roll.
Grade: B. Not rated, but with adult language. Available to rent starting Aug. 28 via grailmoviehouse.com
(Photo: Sherri Kauk)
