The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter

by David Sax

White has said that there is no romance in a mouse click; that physical, analog recording technology preserves music and sound far better over the course of history than quickly obsolete hard drives. He has recorded one of the top-selling records of the entire vinyl boom, Lazaretto, an album so packed with wild quirks and design features—a hidden hologram, a secret track on the label, an A side that plays from the inside out (which I didn’t figure out for a full six months)—it serves as analog’s battle cry. If White is the industry’s Willy Wonka, then Third Man Records is his chocolate factory. In 2008, White converted a former auto repair shop into a psychedelic, analog wonderland that looks as if it was designed by Tim Burton. Each surface is painted either glossy black or in shocks of primary yellow, red, and blue. Everyone working there wears the company’s signature black and canary yellow colors. Third Man has a vintage pharmacy soda fountain, a stuffed giraffe’s head, old quirky cars, and motel signs. There is a concert venue where artists have performed live to the cutting lathe, or recorded with White as producer, ranging from local independent bands and Aziz Ansari to such legends as Beck, Loretta Lynn, Wanda Jackson, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Willie Nelson.