More signs of a vinyl resurgence?

[Dig'Em]

BACK IN A GROOVE ; SALES ARE UP FOR TRADITIONAL VINYL ALBUMS; VINYL RECORD ALBUMS STILL HAVE A FOLLOWING

The Capital Times

1984 words

28 March 2007

The Capital Times & Wisconsin State Journal

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© 2007 The Capital Times & Wisconsin State Journal. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All Rights Reserved.

When Ron Roloff opened his new music store in the late 1980s, he wanted to choose a name that looked to the future. And at the time, that future didn't seem to include cassettes or records.

He went with "Strictly Discs," reflecting the store's exclusive focus on compact discs. Today, he's glad that the name provides him with something of a loophole, because he's devoting more and more space in his Monroe Street store to those supposedly obsolete vinyl discs after all.

"It's a good thing we didn't call it 'Strictly Cassettes,'" Roloff says now.

One whole wall of Strictly Discs is devoted to vinyl, with classic albums by James Brown and Funkadelic sitting side-by-side next to new albums by alt-country singer Lucinda Williams and folk- rocker Bright Eyes, albums that even their fans may not know exist on vinyl.

Roloff says that his vinyl sales have shot up 43 percent in the last three years, and he's on track for another record year in 2007. In fact, when he put in new shelves for CDs, he had them designed specifically so they could also house records when the store expands its selection later this year.

Not bad for a format that has been around for a century, and many thought would have disappeared altogether by now. Fragile, unrewritable and as easy to carry around as dinner platters, vinyl albums may be the recording medium least suited to the digital age of the IPod.

And yet, vinyl's obituary has been written many times before, from the advent of live radio in the 1920s to the invention of cassette tapes in the 1960s and compact discs in the 1980s. But through it all, vinyl has hung on by its fingernails, kept alive by a devoted collection of supporters that include audiophile purists in love with the album's "warm" sound to hip-hop DJs who turn their turntables into musical instruments.

Today, cassette tapes have vanished from the music landscape, and CD sales are plummeting in the face of the digital music revolution. But vinyl still hangs on, and is even enjoying a renaissance of sorts lately.

"We've definitely been seeing an upswing," says owner Dave Benson of Mad City Music Exchange on Williamson Street, which sells both new and used albums. "If I were to look at my monthly totals, and compare them say to five or six years ago, I'm pretty sure we're selling more vinyl now than we were then. We never stopped selling vinyl, but there was a period when it slowed down."

According to Nielsen Soundscan, 858,000 LPs were sold in the United States in 2006, just a tiny fraction of the 550 million CDs that were sold in the same year. But that number is up slightly from the year before, and also doesn't take into account a lot of mom- and-pop record stores that don't report to Soundscan, as well as the vast used record market.

CD sales, meanwhile, have plummeted, with 20 percent fewer albums sold in the first three months of 2007 than were sold in the first three months of 2006, according to Soundscan. The Wall Street Journal quoted one artist manager as saying that CDs are less valuable to artists as a revenue stream and more as a marketing tools, enticing customers to buy concert tickets or T-shirts.

Strictly Discs originally began carrying vinyl in the mid-1990s, seeing a market for new hip-hop as well as old-school funk and soul, which the store still can't carry enough of on vinyl. When the hip- hop market began faltering a few years ago, the store shifted into more classic rock and indie rock. Now Roloff estimates the store has about 700 new titles on vinyl and another 9,000 used records, and the store's web site www.strictlydiscs.com will feature a special vinyl section where customers can browse 60,000 titles on vinyl.

Roloff says he's sees two kinds of vinyl buyers in his store; younger male customers who are just getting into vinyl, buying a lot of new indie releases, and older customers who have been buying vinyl all along, and gravitate to the store's collection of classic "dusty grooves."

He draws an analogy between vinyl fans and people who love to grill outdoors; instead of demanding instant gratification at the drive-thru or on the iPod, both enjoy taking the extra time to get something special.

"I suppose it's like those who like to grill and use charcoal briquets, because they like the whole ritual aspect of building the fire," Roloff says. "The payoff is you've got a different-tasting piece of meat."

B-Side Records on State Street, despite its name, cleared out its vinyl inventory to make way for CDs in the 1990s. But the format's resurgence prompted the store to start stocking records again, and owner Steve Manley says they now account for 10 percent of overall sales.

"That's something I never would have predicted," Manley said. "I was really surprised when it started coming back."

An uptick in interest in vinyl albums is also being felt by those who sell and repair turntables at well. At Paragon Audio on Monroe Street, which not only sells used and new turntables but does turntable repair and refurbishing, sales and marketing manager Scott Malawski says the store does some kind of turntable-related business every day.

He also notes that vinyl is outselling more vaunted next- generation media like DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD ("SACD"), possibly because audiophiles are already satisfied with the wide range of sound that an album can offer, and at a cheaper price. Vinyl albums can hold more information than CDs, so the right system can bring out the full depth and range of a note recorded on vinyl.

"The sound stage is more real than a CD," Malawski says. "Most people don't have the type of gear necessary to get the benefits of a CD. When you play the same track on a record versus a CD, most of the time you're going to a hear a 3D effect almost that makes you feel like you're surrounded by the music."

While high-end CD or SACD systems are particularly expensive, audiophiles on a budget, such as college students, can put together a good-sounding turntable-based sound system for a lot less, Malawski says.

"I've been finding a lot of college students getting into records," he says. "College students have a limited income, so they're buying their music really cheap. Sometimes they'll get their parents' record collection, and they want to play them, and you can get a used turntable for a couple of hundred bucks. It's not hard for them to get into it."

Used albums are also a cheap way for younger listeners to dig into music from previous eras, including finding some dusty treasures that haven't been released on CD.

"A lot of the younger vinyl buyers are going for older records that were released in the '60s or '70s or '80s," Benson says. "It's fun for us to deal with that stuff. I had a young woman customer who bought about 20 albums last night, and they were all used, and it was the most eclectic range of things. It was everything from hardcore punk to Carly Simon."

While used vinyl is still sought after at everywhere from used record stores to garage sales to online sites like www.vinyl - collector.com, independent record stores in Madison also carry plenty of new releases on vinyl. Most of them tend toward the indie rock end of the spectrum; new albums by Low, Air and Deftones have vinyl releases. Manley estimates that one-third to one-half of the new titles he carries at B-Side are also available on vinyl.

"I started with vinyl, and I went to CDs, and now I'm going back to vinyl," says Eric Hartz, owner of Madison's Shortwave Records label. "I like the whole process of listening to a record. I like listening to Side A and then getting up and listening to Side B.

"I think the sound is superior, too. The majority of people who listen to vinyl now take sound seriously. If somebody's going to buy the new Shins record on vinyl, chances are they're probably an audiophile, and they're buying it on vinyl because they want to hear it the best it can sound."

There's enough traffic in new vinyl albums that Hartz is trying something different with his new Shortwave Records, something that has many in the music industry taking notice. Shortwave's first release, "Antelopes" by the avant-garde jazz outfit Voltress, is available only on a digital download and on limited-edition vinyl, complete bypassing CDs altogether.

Hartz says that CDs are so cheap and easy to produce now that the market has become oversaturated with them, a position similar to where cassettes were in the late 1980s when CDs took over the market. When he was pitching the idea of a new label to Redeye Distribution, they were lukewarm to the idea of a digital-only label, but intrigued by the addition of vinyl.

"I knew there were those guys out there like myself," he says. "There's not many of us, but there's a pretty loyal market. If you buy vinyl, chances are you'll buy something new just because it's on vinyl."

When Hartz was at the South by Southwest music conference earlier this month, he met with representatives at Interscope and Capitol Records who were interested to see how his idea for Shortwave would fly, and if the idea of digital-plus-vinyl releases might make sense for them as well down the road. The digital release would appeal to the mass-market consumer, while the vinyl would be for the audiophiles who want something physical and tangible in their collections.

"As far as the vinyl releases, I'm going to make sure the recordings are the highest quality that I can possibly get them," he says. "They're going to be mixed and mastered with the audiophile guy in mind. I'm going to be very nitpicky."

Not even the most devoted vinyl fan thinks the format will ever return to the prominence it once had. But many take some satisfaction in seeing that their beloved stacks of wax can still find a groove in the 21st century.

"I had a customer say something early this year, 'Who woulda thunk that vinyl would outlast the CD format?'" Roloff says. "I don't know that that's true or not, but I can tell you this: the format of vinyl is probably never going away."

E-mail: rthomas@madison.com

Staff writer Katie Dean contributed to this story.

Caption: HENRY A. KOSHOLLEK/THE CAPITAL TIMES Vinyl records still account for only a fraction of overall music sales, but they are sought out by those who are after a slower, fuller experience, maybe like using a grill instead of a microwave, says Ron Roloff, owner of "Strictly Discs." It's still Strictly Discs, just not exclusively the ones Roloff (above) had in mind when he opened his shop on Monroe Street in the 1980s. The record racks at Strictly Discs are filled with classic albums by artists like James Brown and Parliament, as well as new albums by bands like the reunited Stooges. Soul, funk and rare groove albums are the hottest sellers on vinyl at Strictly Discs.

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[Chuck Nessa]

I hear the big bands are coming back too.

[porcy62]

He draws an analogy between vinyl fans and people who love to grill outdoors; instead of demanding instant gratification at the drive-thru or on the iPod, both enjoy taking the extra time to get something special.

"I suppose it's like those who like to grill and use charcoal briquets, because they like the whole ritual aspect of building the fire," Roloff says. "The payoff is you've got a different-tasting piece of meat."

[Big Beat Steve]

Ha, what I said all along.

Strange that jazz buffs should get into alliances with hip hop and house DJ's but as long as these subcultures are around and focusing on vinyl the medium is gonna hang on.

Vinyl rules!

Getting back to my 90% vinyl collection now to spin a black 12" one ...

[(BB)]

I prefer my music on vinyl (especially the big bands)

I grill my meat

I make cakes from scratch

I walk to the store

I ride my bike into town

If I could take the train when going on vacation I would do that too

You can call me nostalgic if you like, I'm just doing what makes me happy.

[Noj]

If I could trade all my cds for vinyl, I would.

[Eric]

Nothing beats have the "big" cover art and notes on the back. Plus ... I think 70 minute CDs are hard to listen to straight through. Getting up to flip the lp after 20 minutes or so seems to make for a more engaging/focused listening experience.

[Neal Pomea]

And yet, vinyl's obituary has been written many times before, from the advent of live radio in the 1920s

Vinyl is not a synonym for records. Records were made of shellack in those days. Nobody was writing the obituary for vinyl at a time when it was not yet in use.

[Hot Ptah]

This article is about one city with a large university population. I wonder if this trend has taken hold elsewhere.

[Dig'Em]

Seems like this could go either way: university students as the inverterate downloaders or the ultimate iconoclsts.

As for me, I only go to towns with large university populations.

[porcy62]

I hear the big bands are coming back too.

Maybe you intended your post as ironic, not at all, look at April program of La Casa Del Jazz in Rome: two large ensembles in less then 30 days:

http://www.casajazz.it/canale.asp?id=724

...and I bet that among the huge number of summer's jazz festivals in Italy we'll see a lot of "big band"...maybe jazz is dead in U.S., but over here it's in good shape.

Edited March 29, 2007 by porcy62

[Claude]

There is definitely a vinyl trend, but it's not sure how long it will last, because much of it is based on fashion and hype, and not on objective advantages of the format.

After all, the most important trend in music formats is in favor of MP3 and other compressed files, which are more portable than CDs and LPs but sound much worse.

[JSngry]

Niche market.

[Eric]

Niche market.

Definitley, but I often wonder how they make money at volumes that have to be a small fraction of what they were years ago.

[Dig'Em]

Niche market.

Like jazz. I'm happy to be part of this niche in a niche. Can we be a 'cult'?

[ghost of miles]

The cool kids dig vinyl these days, for a variety of reasons.

[Teasing the Korean]

I really love LPs as objects, even if I don't play them (which I do, only I've accumulated too many to play!).

[Neal Pomea]

The cool kids dig vinyl these days, for a variety of reasons.

They dig music from shellac and vinyl

Edited March 29, 2007 by It Should be You

[JSngry]

So waht happened to the news story from a few years ago that LP s were going to be forced (yes, forced, as in you got no choice but) out of production due to some petrochemical/economic restriction/reason?

Might even be archived here on the board somewhere...

[Soul Stream]

Here in Austin, there's a hell of a lot of bands that release vinyl along with CD. I was in Antone's records yesterday and saw some cool new vinyl with great artwork by a band here in town called Ghostland Observatory. Laugh all you want about the Big Band Comeback. Vinyl has really slowly crept into the young psyche. It's the "blowback" or fallout of the download age. Kids are trying to reach back to something they perceive as more real (fantasy as that is or not), and vinyl is they way some are doing it.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

If I could trade all my cds for vinyl, I would.

You wouldn't want some of MY vinyl, Noj - where's the smiley for "Yechcchhh!"?

Almost every CD I buy that I already have on vinyl is a huge upgrade.

MG

[Big Beat Steve]

Almost every CD I buy that I already have on vinyl is a huge upgrade.

Because you played (or wore) out the vinyl grooves in the course of time or because the vinyl pressing and/or mastering quality was oh so crappy in the first place?

I know a few cases of crappy reissue vinyl pressings too and have therefore opted for CD reissues too (but those hardly ever duplicate the material 100% so you keep both) but there have been a few cases of CD reissues (or pre-LP era material, i.e. pre-1952 or so) bought in the 90s whee I was unaware of long-OOP 70s or early 80s vinyl reissues of EXACTLY the same tracks (often in the same sequence) so when I did discover those vinyl reissues later on I quickly dumped the CDs (i.e. sold or gave them as birthday presents) and have NEVER regretted it soundwise.

Edited March 30, 2007 by Big Beat Steve

[Claude]

It's impossible to generalize in that respect. It all depends on the quality of the mastering (of the CDs vs the LPs) and pressing (LP).

I've found that many ECM albums I had on CD sound better on LP, even on a turntable that only cost 1/3 of my CD player. The ECM pressing quality is extremely good, and the CD mastering sounds sort of distant and "colourless".

But I've also heard many reissue LPs which sound horrible compared to the CD reissues, for which the original tapes were used.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Almost every CD I buy that I already have on vinyl is a huge upgrade.

Because you played (or wore) out the vinyl grooves in the course of time or because the vinyl pressing and/or mastering quality was oh so crappy in the first place?

Neither; because it has generally been so difficult to buy Soul Jazz in Britain, and up to the early '90s I was pretty poor, that I bought the cheapest second hand LPs no matter what their condition and put up with what they sounded like.

MG

[.:.impossible]

Niche market.

Everybody's looking for one. I think this is a positive trend, personally.