Vinyl Articles of Interest

The Record Exchange keeps independent music alive

Chris Bodovinitz

Independently owned record stores seem to be a dying breed. Many are closing their doors in response to the current economy and the music industry's battle with Internet downloads. Boise's Record Exchange, however, remains strong. The store not only carries an endless supply of music, it also hosts many community events to help keep the music alive.

The Record Exchange, known to regulars as The RX, opened its doors in 1977, making it Idaho's oldest and largest independently owned record store. Its shelves are packed with new and used CDs and DVDs, its walls with cassette tapes and vinyl records. There are also a coffee shop and novelty section located inside the building that adds to the store's wide variety of merchandise.

Free in-store concerts are another great attraction that keeps The Record Exchange in the community's musical spotlight. Often times, popular bands travel through Idaho on tour but aren't scheduled to play in any local venues. The store will sometimes catch these acts and ask them to play a smaller show in the area. Most of the time, the concert is held in the store itself.

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SPINNING AGAIN: Newly pressed vinyl records making a comeback

Many of today's artists are producing LPs

By JOHN PRZYBYS
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

To oldsters, and not-quite-oldsters, it's like seeing an old friend you had thought to be long dead.

Vinyl LPs, in all their shrink-wrapped newness, in cardboard sleeves bearing artwork visible without a magnifying glass and liner notes that don't look like the small print on a mortgage contract, sitting, right out there in the open, on the racks of your neighborhood mass-market retailer.

Just like they used to, so many years ago.

Vinyl records -- newly pressed ones, not vintage or pre-owned albums -- are making a comeback. A small comeback, a minor comeback., but a comeback nonetheless.

According to the Recording Industry Association of America -- the trade group whose members include record manufacturers -- about 2.9 million LPs and EPs were shipped in 2008.

In comparison, about 385 million CDs were shipped and consumers downloaded more than a billion singles and about 57 million albums that same year. But, for a recorded medium that has spent most of the past decade on life support, last year's 2.9 million isn't bad.

Again, according to the association: In the years after 1998, when about 3.4 million LPs and EPs were shipped, LP/EP shipments went into a steady free fall until 2006, when fewer than a million were shipped.

Then came 2007, when LP/EP shipments jumped to about 1.3 million, setting the stage for last year's 2.9 million. The bottom line: Last year brought shipments of vinyl records back to where they were 10 years ago.

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SPINNING AGAIN