Despite the proliferation of music streaming platforms in recent years, local record stores are seeing increased traffic, especially among young people. WMRA's Zack Furr reports.
[record crackles]
One person who has witnessed this shift firsthand is Ryan Faraci, the owner of Rhythm and Vinyl in Harrisonburg.
RYAN FARACI: I have always wanted a record store. Physical media kind of died out for a little bit, so I thought the dream was gone. But right around 2015, I think vinyl especially really started picking up. I had been collecting vinyl because I love the physical media aspect of it. And one day I realized I had about a thousand of them, and might as well make my dream come true since people are collecting vinyl now.
Faraci opened Rhythm and Vinyl in the Liberty Street Mercantile building in May. Before owning the store, he had a space in the Factory Antique Mall in Verona and had worked in other physical media stores as well. Faraci said he’s been surprised by the rise in physical media, and by younger people getting involved in it.
FARACI: It’s been overwhelming. I did not expect – students came back, and moving weekend cleared us out. We were so low on inventory after that. And then this parents' weekend we just had – we’re low on inventory now. We’re getting more stuff in the next few days because, surprisingly, the students are really taking to it. It was unexpected, the enthusiasm that students have for it.
Faraci believes this rise in physical media, especially among youth, is due to the tangible interaction it requires from the listener, unlike streaming.
FARACI: People have their digital media, but now they don’t have any physical connection with the music they’re listening to. And I think people seek out that physical connection with their music. You have to be more deliberate about what you listen to, because you have to participate in the act of listening to it. You’ve got to flip the record, and things like that, and I think that people really connect with that part of it.
In the 2015 Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) mid-year report, most physical media sales across the board were down. CDs sold 56.8 million units in the first half of 2014, and went down to 41.1 million sold, a 27.6% decrease.
However, despite the decrease in CDs, vinyl sales were up. In the first half of 2014, 6.5 million vinyls were sold. That number jumped up to 9.2 million the next year.
By 2020, the numbers sank a bit, with vinyls selling 8.8 million units in the first half of that year. In this year's mid-year report, vinyl has sold 22.1 million units, a 151% increase over five years. This number, however, only includes new releases, reissues, and sales that directly go to record labels and does not include all used vinyl sold.
Faraci says the medium is already back, and has been for a good while now.
FARACI: People make the comment, ‘Yeah, I think it’s really coming back.’ I think it’s back. It's here. I think COVID had a lot to do with it. People were stuck inside, so they started upgrading their stereos and things like that. And with that came an interest in new hobbies, and I think that facilitated an explosion of interest.
One place many record store owners get their vinyl from is record shows, where store owners, first-time sellers, or even people selling their personal collections bring thousands of vinyls into one building.
The owners of the Vinyl Asylum in Staunton, Tanya and Ken Bahrs, frequent many of these record shows.
TANYA BAHRS: We do 80 record shows a year. … We started going south, and now we go north. It’s kind of like a Comic-Con. It’s like 25 record shops into one building. There are people from New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio come to one shop so they can come and get different things that are from different states. It’s awesome.
Vinyl Asylum got its start as Remember When 12 years ago in the Verona Antique Mall.
BAHRS: We had a spot and we had everything just like everybody else did. But how many railroad lanterns and baskets can people have? So we said, okay, what can we put in a crate and make some money? And we’ve been collecting records forever. So we put the records in a crate. Boom, they were gone. Put some more records in a crate, boom they were gone. And we’re like, hey, I think we got something. Then we were like, man, let’s just get rid of all this stuff and let’s just do vinyl.
At that time, Remember When had locations in five different antique malls, but due to low traffic, the couple moved their business into a few different storefronts before finding their home in Statler Square. Since then, Tanya and her husband have seen the industry grow. Bahrs, like Faraci, believes that the vinyl industry is back, not just emerging.
BAHRS: It’s back, and it’s going to get bigger, and it’s going to stay.
Bahrs believes the resurgence is due to people being able to hold the music in their hands.
BAHRS: Physical media, you can see it, you can read it, you can smell it. You can do whatever. There are two ways you can heat your house: gas or a woodstove. You can set your gas to 75 degrees, and you can feel comfortable or whatever. But if you have your woodstove, you can feel it, you can smell it. It’s warm and comfy and cozy, and that’s what a record is.
Both Rhythm and Vinyl and Vinyl Asylum can be found online on Facebook and Instagram.
