What’s Round, Black and Costs $24.98? Not Licorice

So you finally admitted that CDs are here to stay and sold your old turntable at your yard sale.

Bad timing.

Vinyl albums are coming back (kinda) and they may be better than ever.

MCA Records is launching a series of audiophile-quality albums, with all the things vinyl junkies say they miss in CDs, primarily a supposedly warmer sound and the tactile satisfaction of the big cover and disc.

This step back into the vinyl vaults is a first for a major label, though several small, specialty labels have maintained audiophile vinyl catalogues, and such major rock acts as Guns N’ Roses and Pearl Jam have offered their latest albums in vinyl editions for old times’ (and collectors’) sake.

“This is a retro movement, but I think it’s a good one,” says MCA Music Chairman Al Teller, a professed vinyl junkie. “There’s something about looking at the graphics you can’t have on CDs and there’s a real feel to taking a good, solid vinyl album and putting it on your turntable. I’m certainly looking forward to putting [these] on mine.”

The initial Heavy Vinyl series will feature five titles: the Who’s “Who’s Next,” Buddy Holly’s debut album, Dave Mason’s “Alone Together,” Buddy Guy’s “I Was Walking Through the Woods” and John Barry’s score for “Out of Africa.”

Teller’s not fooling himself--he has no illusions that vinyl will return to prominence. Heavy Vinyl releases will be for a limited market of specialists and collectors who complain that digital CDs’ sound lacks the warmth of good vinyl. With that in mind, Teller says, this will be first-class all the way, from mastering directly off of original analog tapes to the price--a robust $24.98 suggested list, about twice what many new CDs go for these days.

“Not for a moment do I think it’s going to make any significant comeback as a format,” he says. “We’re planning on initial quantities of maybe 10,000 copies of each album.”

But are there even 10,000 people who would pay $24.98 for “Alone Together”?

Ken Barnes, managing editor of the ICE CD newsletter and a serious vinyl collector, has his doubts.

“I’m not sure how many people are left who haven’t completely converted to CD,” Barnes says, “though it’s kind of noble and attractive to someone like me. The irony is that it’s amusing to see a major label committing to a format that it, along with everyone else in the same position, had done its best to bury prematurely.”

But Teller points to a recent upsurge in turntable sales. This series will even have a cross-promotion with the Technics turntable brand. But he insists it’s not just a gimmick.

“We will support the line,” he says. “I can’t say yet how much we’ll do, but we definitely will be back.”