Michael Pultz helps with record sales at Loop in Cleveland's Tremont neighborhood. The shop also sells coffee and art. Pultz has a collection of 10,000 vinyl records at home.
For people too young to remember vinyl records, they must look today like some kind of licorice Frisbees. How could the uninitiated ever appreciate the deep emotional ties and the nostalgic pull of the art on the 12-by-12-inch album cover, or the love that went into reading the liner notes? Listening to a vinyl record back in the day meant you were engaged in the act. You had to stay in the room to listen to it and then turn the record over after 30 minutes. That's how the album cover became your best friend. You memorized the lineup of the musicians. You read the lyrics to the songs. On some occasions, you got a giant complimentary poster that went up on the wall of your basement or in your bedroom or wherever your turntable and speakers were.
The record filled your room with sound. Deep, rich analog sound. There was a sense of reverence about the purchase, the playing and the storage of the albums. Your album collection was you. You were a rocker, a folkie or a poet all based on your record collection. It represented all that you were, the depth of your soul, your taste in art, your sense of humor.
If you wanted to measure the potential of someone becoming your friend or lover, looking at their album collection was key. If you liked the way someone looked on the outside, their record collection told you what they were like on the inside of their heart and their head.
No wonder vinyl records are making a comeback. According to the latest Soundscan statistics, LP sales in 2009 were 2,496,000, a 33 percent increase over 2008. People who really love music love vinyl.
Vince Sluzars is president of Gotta Groove Records on Superior Avenue in Cleveland. They pressed their first vinyl album last August. So they just turned 1 year old.
"Sales of vinyl albums have gone up every year since 2006," he says. "I think 2008 was up 130 percent over 2007. Last year was the highest vinyl sales since 1991, when they quit making vinyl. So it's clearly on the rise, and yet it will always remain a niche business. Since the iPod, kids are no longer buying CDs. So now there is a move back to the vinyl album, which is tangible and tactile and a more engaging experience.
"This year, we have made records for national acts like Dave Allen and the Guilty Women. We've done a Tom Waits reissue of 'The Early Years' and we're doing the new Hold Steady album. We've made records for bands in Canada, Australia and China. And we've done a record for at least 40 local bands. We do a lot of metal and punk music. I have to give them credit for keeping the vinyl thing alive. The fans are hardcore."
Terry Stewart is president of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. He owns between 250,000 and half a million vinyl records.
"The first record I ever bought was 'Sugar Blues' by Clyde McCoy in 1948. Vinyl records are about the tactile nature of the art form. The touch. It's about the act of putting the needle on the record. The smell of the cardboard cover. My greatest find as a collector was at an estate sale in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. That's where I found a copy of the Johnny Burnett Trio. I listen to my records every day."
Several newer area stores are also getting into vinyl, like the Loop record-CD-coffee shop in Tremont. When it comes to vinyl, they sell new records by new bands or old records that have been newly reissued on vinyl.
"Ten years ago, iPods took off, and people pronounced that CDs would soon be dead," says Michael Pultz, who works in Loop's music department.
"That hasn't happened and won't for a while, I believe. I don't think there is a lot of difference in vinyl sound that is discernable to the human ear. Most new vinyl records now, as opposed to old records that are newly reissued on vinyl, include a free download so you can have it on your iPod as well. The college indie music crowd loves vinyl. Anybody who gets their music information from Pitchfork.com is likely to be a vinyl fan."
"There's a big-time resurgence in vinyl right now," says Peter Gulyas, owner of Blue Arrow record store on Waterloo Road in Cleveland's Collinwood neighborhood. "We specialize in vintage vinyl records. We've been open a year and half. We're paying the bills for right now. . . . What we're really selling is nostalgia. I'm always looking for old vinyl, I go to garage and estate sales. I have friends who are always on the lookout for me. Everyone loves the cover art. And so do I, as you can tell from the floor of the shop." The floor, alone worth a visit to Blue Arrow, is tiled completely in vintage LP covers.
"I think that most people listening to vinyl these days enjoy the warmth that they perceive to be missing from CDs, and the experience of listening to an album that you can actually hold in your hands," says Matt Wardlaw, director of operations for the Beachwood-based radio syndication company Envision Radio Networks (envisionradio.com).
"The vinyl experience keeps you engaged in listening to the actual music, because at least once every 25 to 30 minutes, you have to get up and flip the album over."
John Hannibal has an Internet radio station called Radio Hannibal. He, too, is a vinyl lover.
Peter Gulyas owns Blue Arrow on Waterloo Road in Cleveland. They specialize in vintage vinyl as opposed to new reissued records.
"There are two main reasons that I, like others, love vinyl," he says. "The first is the audio quality. Granted, a good stereo system is needed to appreciate it, but due to the analog nature of vinyl, the musical wave form is much smoother as opposed to the zeros and ones of digital. This translates to a better listening experience, more nuance . . . a richer sound. The other falls under the romanticism of vinyl. For oldsters like me, it harks back to a time when all we had was vinyl. For the youth, it's like the love of vintage cars. The ritual of cleaning the record, placing it on the turntable, setting the tone arm down, etc."
Charlotte Morgan, a former music critic for Scene magazine, is working on a book called "The Death of Vinyl Records."
"For my book, I selected a great group of subjects. They were mostly music critics and writers. I asked each person in the group if they noticed something in music had changed with the death of vinyl in the '80s," she says of her concept.
"They all agreed there was something magical about vinyl."
As the vinyl revival proves, they're not alone.
Thanks to www.cleveland.com for the reprint rights.
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