Record Store Day is like Christmas for music collectors. It’s a day when artists release special editions of their best albums, concert recordings or rare recordings. All on vinyl, some in different colors—greens and blues, swirled oranges and reds.
Music fans begin lining up outside their record store of choice sometime in the early hours of the morning. When Goshen’s Ignition Music Garage (120 E. Washington St.) opened at 8 a.m. on Saturday, April 22, over 100 people were in line. At one point, owner Julie Hershberger pushed out a television cart so those in line could watch old music videos she had recorded on video tapes.
She said it was fun for the 40 people near the television.
It was a smaller affair in Logansport, where only 18 people waited outside The Record Farm (430 E Broadway St). Kasey Keller, the first person inline, arrived at 12:30 a.m.
Myah Yax, on the other hand, waited just two hours for The Record Farm to open. Only two years into collecting vinyl, she started because she wanted a new way to listen to her favorite musician, Taylor Swift, rather than just streaming music on Spotify.
She had her eyes on the Taylor Swift Record Store Day album, a collection of songs from “folklore” that were recorded in a live studio session during the first summer of the pandemic.
The initial burst of Record Store Day was over in nearly 20 minutes in Logansport, the collectors quickly grabbing their wants and heading home to either spin the black circle or shelve the new additions to their collection.
Yax was among them, happily holding the Swift album and a single released by “Stranger Things” actor and musician Maya Hawke.
You never give me your money
Nobody probably ever expected vinyl records to make a comeback. Or compact discs. Or cassettes.
The iPod and streaming era nearly brought the end of physical copies of music. It is easy to play music on a phone or a laptop and then get sucked into social media or walk away to do chores, half listening to whatever is playing.
For many, listening to music is a lost art — sitting down in front of a stereo, headphones on, liner notes spread open, following along with the lyrics word for word, studying the musicians listed in the credits.
It’s more like absorbing music in a magical experience.
There is a new generation of music listeners who maybe never had that experience. But they have the chance now.
“Billboard” reported that during the first week of April 2023 there were 2.110 million album sales in the U.S. Of those sales, nearly two million were physical purchases (vinyl, CD and cassettes) and only 336,000 digital download sales.
Overall, since the start of the year up until the first week of April there had been over 12 million vinyl sales, up 27.8 percent from the same time frame last year and just over nine million CD sales, up three percent.
The compact disc debuted in March 1983. “USA Today” reported that by 1999 CDs were responsible for $22 billion in music sales. The advent of digital downloads quickly diminished the value of CDs, however. First, although illegal, music fans could log onto Napster and download anything they wanted for free. Later, online music shops like iTunes, along with Apple’s popular iPod, created an opportunity for someone to take their music collection everywhere and anywhere in an easily handheld device.
By 2022, CD sales were at an all-time low of $482 million.
On the other hand, online streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music accounted for $13 billion, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. That’s 84 percent of the $15 billion market revenue. Physical sales made up 11 percent.
While streaming is a convenient way to legally listen to most any music, the flipside is the poor payouts to musicians.
“Ditto Music” reported in January that Spotify pays artists $0.003 to $0.005 per song stream. They estimated a musician would need around 23,000 streams to make $100.
On the other hand, Apple Music pays artists a whopping one cent per stream.
Money changes everything
“This isn’t an industry where anyone gets rich unless you are way higher up on the food chain than I am,” said Hershberger, who called owning a record store a struggle.
She called Record Store Day 2023 the best they’ve ever had and the first event Ignition Music Garage made a bit of money on.
She’s owned the shop for five years.
In Terre Haute, The Local Vinyl (2170 N. 13th St.) celebrated a successful Record Store Day weekend. Record Store Day was its best day of business in its existence. The following day was the best online sales day as well.
Eleanor Jones, The Local Vinyl owner, said the store made its first profit in a decade in 2022. She felt positive that 2023 would provide another good year for the business.
Matt Swisher co-owns The Record Farm in Logansport with Adam Wilson. Now in it’s eighth year of business, Swisher said things were going better than ever.
“We sort of found that if you are passionate about it for the right reasons and you are not too worried about making an insane amount of profit the money sort of falls into place,” he said. “If you are putting out a good product you are able to have a full-time employee and pay them well.”
Swisher said he still works his day job. He and his wife, Katya, have several business ventures as well, including Bonus Pints, which houses The Record Farm. Walk through the front door and you will be greeted with a nice selection of records. Move to the back of the shop and you will find Bonus Pints, which serves a variety of food and drinks. There are also arcade cabinets and pinball machines. Up on the second floor, the Swishers have slowly been adding shops. There’s a barber, a spooky clothing and art store and soon there will be a comic book store.
Katya Swisher also runs Vibrant Events Catering.
Golden Years
But why vinyl? Why is it returning now and why are cassettes and compact discs following in suit?
Jones said she thought if was a mix between nostalgia and wanting a physical connection to music as well as the musicians supporting the medium.
In Logansport, Swisher said The Record Farm had a customer base that consisted mostly of middle-aged music collectors.
“They grew up in record stores,” he said. “They grew up going to Musicland and Sam Goody and now maybe they are old enough they have a little bit of disposable income. Also, very slowly the record industry has gotten in on the train. They are realizing that even though it’s a small amount of sales compared to what it was in the 90s, it is a way to make money.”
“I feel like there is always a contrarian that we are dealing with in society,” said Hershberger. “And I feel like streaming has gotten so popular that there are people on the other end of the spectrum that want to do the opposite. Vinyl to me is the opposite of streaming. It is exactly what streaming isn’t. It’s something that someone who appreciates music, a connoisseur, an audiophile, even just a lay person can appreciate tangibly. They can hold on to it. They can turn it over. They can read the back. They can read the credits. They can make those connections between bands.”
Hershberger recalled learning that Alan Parsons produced Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon” from reading the album credits.
“I don’t know at what age I learned that but it was too late in my life,” she said.
All the young dudes
Hershberger said when she started to see young people come into the Ignition Music Garage and buy records she imagined them going home and playing the albums on their Crossley record player a couple of times before losing interest.
She called listening to a physical album an active listening experience, something where the listener sits down, examines the album cover, follows along with the lyrics, compared to the passive experience of streaming music on an online app.
“It’s turned into something more than an active listening experience,” she said. “People collect all sorts of things—action figures, comic books. I have kids tell me they have every variant of an album. It’s been pressed 11 times and I have every single version. And that’s all they have, just one record that they really, really like but they have 11 copies of it. I think the industry is doing a very good job of appealing to the collectability of vinyl. I don’t know how sustainable that is but I hope that it adds to the allure at least.”
Swisher said he was surprised that The Record Farm gets quite a few teenagers shopping at the store.
“I’m sure glad they are,” he said. “But I don’t know the reason.”
“Artists like Taylor Swift and Adele have really switched the platform playing field by pressing and pressing often,” said Jones. “They are introducing Gen Z into collecting vinyl. Half of Generation Z who buy vinyl don’t even own a record player. They just buy it to support the artists.”
Taylor Swift went as far to sign copies of her album “folklore” on compact disc and mail them to various independent record stores around the nation. Indianapolis’ Indy CD & Vinyl was one of the lucky shops to get surprise shipment of Taylor goodness.
Vinyl collectors both young and old are also taking their collections online. Instagram accounts like Mel.Spins.Vinyl mixes album art and fashion. There are countless Youtube videos of collectors sharing their collection.
Mo Money Mo Problems
The expensive price point—albums range from $30-$50 dollars generally—doesn’t seem to be turning music fans away.
“I’ve noticed a trend over the last few years that a lot of people are buying more new vinyl,” Hershberger said. “I’ve had to invest more into my new inventory. Used is honestly what keeps us in business because the markup is a little bit better for us. There’s barely any margin for us in new vinyl. That is a tough one for a small business to deal with. I just hope people know that if they are not listening to a record or a fan of the record, usually if your store sells used records, they will buy a new one back from you. That’s another good way to help support your local record store is to let things go that you aren’t listening to and let them get cycled back into the system for someone else to appreciate.”
“We strive to have a good selection of gently used vinyl and new pressings,” Jones said. “If you are just getting into collecting you are able to get some really classic artists for one to five dollars before you start buying rap albums for 50 dollars.”
She said a lot of collectors enjoy hunting for the rarer releases and the variant prints such as different colored vinyl.
“There’s a lot of pride if you get an exclusive release that maybe only had one thousand or less pressed,” she said. “You know your money is going to something that is unique and original.”
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