Creativity Quote by Joshua Homme

Vinyl, in Joshua Homme's mouth, isn't a warm, fuzzy ode to analog purity; it's a shrug at how a once-mass format has been repackaged into a lifestyle product. The key move is the deflationary "I guess" - a phrase that lets him sound casual while landing a fairly brutal verdict. He's not grandstanding about "the death of music" or begging fans to stop buying records. He's pointing out a market reality: vinyl's comeback has increasingly been built on scarcity, price, and identity rather than simple listening.

The intent reads as both critique and resignation. Homme comes from a rock tradition where records were tools: you bought them, wore them out, argued over them. Now the vinyl experience is often mediated by limited runs, colored pressings, deluxe box sets, and the gentle pressure to treat music like a collectible asset. "Exclusively" is doing heavy lifting; it's exaggerated enough to sound like a complaint, but accurate enough to sting. It frames vinyl not as democratic nostalgia but as a gate-kept hobby.

Context matters: streaming made access frictionless, and that very frictionlessness created a hunger for objects with weight, artwork, and ritual. Labels capitalized, plants got clogged, prices rose, and the "support the artist" pitch blurred into merch economics. Homme's line cuts through the romance: when the format becomes a signal of taste and spending power, it's no longer just about sound - it's about status, and who can afford the ritual.