It looks like it’s time to dust off the good ole’ turn-table and bust out current artists’ vinyl, because it’s true: the classic way to listen to music is back. Teenagers all over are breaking out their grandmothers’ old record players, and scrambling to purchase them from antique stores.

A vinyl record is a large disk used to produce music through use of a record player. The needle is dragged across the record and it produces the sound. These music players have been called many different things through the years as they have technologically improved.

These include the phonograph, gramophone and most currently a record player. The phonograph was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison, which was the first version of the modern record player.

Record players fell out of popularity almost completely after analog tape recordings were created. After that came cassette tapes, compact discs and, in 2001, the first iPod. This made the vinyl nearly fall out of existence completely.

Lately, if you scroll through Tumblr or any other social media outlet, you’ll have a great chance of seeing pictures of vinyl, covers of vinyl records or record players. The overall aesthetic of the record player and the covers of vinyl records has attracted Tumblr and other social media users, bringing the record back to popularity in a large way.

“A lot of people think it is ‘vintage’ or ‘cool’ to own a record player. However, there are people who thoroughly enjoy and prefer the sound of vinyl music,” Junior Sandy Vacca said.

The sound of vinyl is also another reason why many people are going back to vinyl; its sound takes those who are listening back to an older time. The nostalgia that comes from hearing the music’s sound in its primitive days is sometimes preferred to the clean-cut digital sound people hear through today’s devices.

“I’ve had so many people tell me the sound is so much better on them and they genuinely look cool, as ‘hipster,’ as that sounds,” Junior Emma Cumberledge said.

The sound of vinyl records have a faint static sound, which may give the music more character to those that are nostalgic for anything but the “mainstream.” This is also what may separate the quality of newer ways of listening to music to the older methods. The sound quality on phones and iPods is usually clear, unless the artist intentionally puts static and record player sounds in the song to add a “vintage” effect.

Record players are one of the first ways people have listened to music and they’re a timeless way to listen to music that’s still used today. Vinyl has come back into a trend because of how much simpler it works, and the nostalgia it creates for this simpler time. Whether someone is a fan of the music players of today or the vinyls of the past, music itself is something that never goes out of style.