Was the vinyl record the most significant artwork of the 20th century?

If you spent your teenage years in the late 20th century, chances are, you treasure the crackle and buzz of a needle in the groove of a vinyl record.

If my house was ever threatened by fire, once the family and dog were out and passports gathered, I’d snatch a big old metal box I have that contains mine and my father’s seven inch 45 rpm records. Precious stacks of black.

By the end of the 60s the album was king, but by the 80s in Aotearoa New Zealand a vinyl cottage industry was exploding with 45 rpm records, with labels like Flying Nun leading a DIY approach. 

As we know, vinyl is now back, and in production again in New Zealand. This after a seeming end for local commercial record production in 1987, which then saw the market flooded by cassette tapes and CDs. 

Only Peter King of Geraldine was to continue to produce short-run lathe cut records here for decades, and was celebrated for it worldwide by independent musicians and even the Beastie Boys.

One of the groups to make a record with Peter King was legendary improvisational Aotearoa group The Dead C - founded that year. 

The Dead C guitarist Bruce Russell along with graphic designer and pedal steel guitar player, Luke Wood, has released a rich book of essays called A Record Could Be Your Whole World: Vinyl Records as the Total Artwork of the Late Twentieth Century. 

Rather than the music or musicians of the period, the book explores the deep impression the record itself has made in our culture. It includes a diversity of writers speaking about a singular record that is special to them.

Bruce Russell is a sound improviser, writer, Programme Leader for the Masters of Creative Practice at Ara Institute of Canterbury and an Adjunct Associate Professor in art and music at the University of Canterbury. 

He has run record labels Xpressway and Corpus Hemeticum, and is currently writing a book called Rock n Roll: My Part in Its Downfall. 

Explaining what he means by a ‘total artwork’, Culture 101 spoke with him in Ōtautahi Christchurch for the programme.