Record Holders

 

How vinyl got its groove back

 

BY LEIGHANNE MARTIN

 

Led Zeppelin, Tom Petty and Beatles posters and records cover the walls of Monster Music, one of the last record stores left in town. It's like stepping into a time machine—the smell of vinyl, the people dressed in old band T-shirts and flannels, but most importantly the music. The store is filled with aisle after aisle of records and CDs ranging from Dolly Parton to Queen.

     There has been a resurgence in vinyl sales within the past five years, according to Galen Hudson, manager of Monster Music. Charleston continues to grow and change, but what has stayed the same is locals’ love for vinyl and the act of flipping through albums rather than buying music online. Record stores that once had a grim future are now thriving.

     “I realized a long time ago that CDs weren't a superior product. I always had vinyl,” Hudson says from his desk, tucked away in the back office of the store. “Somehow in the last mid-decade, some sort of trigger went off. When the tide is out, the only thing it can do is come back in. People have always played records.”

     Hudson discovered his love for music at a young age. Steve Miller's Fly Like An Eagle was his first album. “It changed my life. I was the fourth of four kids. My older siblings had records, and I always wondered when I would be old enough to get one. When I heard Fly Like an Eagle, I knew I had to have that album,” he recalls. “Then I bought the next Steve Miller album, and it grew from there.”

     Through the years, records had been threatened by new music formats—eight-track tapes, then cassettes, then CDs. But, Hudson explains, “By '05, '06, every store in America realized that CDs were out. It was everywhere in the media. We learned to weather that storm, to keep the faith.”

      By 2009, the fallout was complete. Universities began getting high-speed Internet, and kids began using sites like Napster instead of going to music stores. People realized they didn't have to buy music anymore; they could just steal it. However, Hudson says, “people's interest in music never changes.” Sites like Napster and LimeWire sparked lawsuits and raised awareness of the ethics of paying for music so that artists can continue to work and create. The people who truly appreciated the artistry are the ones who stuck around.

     Record Store Day has helped rebuild excitement around vinyl. The event, which takes place the third Sunday each April, stretches internationally to bring people together and celebrate the unique culture of record stores. Record Store Day has been a way for independent stores to release limited-edition records not sold or Amazon or from Walmart. Whether it’s a Phish rerelease or a Nirvana seven inch, people could add these to their collections.

     “This was huge—collectively, at the right time, it touched the right people, and we built that wave back up," say Hudson. "There will always be record stores. Sure, iTunes is far more convenient, but as people adopt it, they will get frustrated because it is not perfect. People get a better experience from buying records. It’s a tactile experience. You hold it, take it out of the cover, place it on the turntable, laying the needle down perfectly on the record. It's physical—touching it, smelling it, hearing it crack. It's something deep, something meaningful.”

      It's not just Hudson and his fellow Gen Xers who have a deep respect for vinyl. He believes the millennials are fueling its resurgence. “This past Christmas I couldn't believe the astounding number of kids who had turntables on their Christmas list,” he says. “My generation gave up on it, and now they're coming back.”

     Mark Bryan, lead guitarist for the Grammu-winning Charleston band Hootie and the Blowfish and music professor at College of Charleston, has his own theory about why vinyl is coming back: “I think people want a solid product. The collectors value the artwork, and there are enough people who care about it.” Gen Xers like him listen to it out of habit; Millennials listen to it out of fascination, he says. Like other music lovers, however, he doesn’t put one format over another. “I love great music in both formats, analog and digital. But people prefer analog for the experience, holding the artwork.”

     Lane Harvey, a loyal Monster customer, is what Hudson calls a vinyl aficionado. Harvey explains that digital music is great when you are on the move, but when you are at home and really want to enjoy the music, vinyl is the way to go. “I love the ritual of selecting which album I want to listen to, sliding it out of the cover, placing it gently on the turntable and dropping the needle,” he says. “One of my favorite parts about this is sitting there, listening to the music and reading liner notes or just admiring the album artwork, reading every inch of that cover, getting lost in the experience.”

     Harvey has been a loyal customer to the store since the early '90s, when it was Manifest Disc and Tapes. For Harvey, the store has a unique quality that keeps him coming back. “For me it is that they just get it. The staff is incredibly friendly. They are music lovers, not just people with a job,” he says.

      Harvey agrees that vinyl has seen a resurgence. Artists from all  genres record on vinyl—everyone from Bruno Mars and Meghan Trainor to old-school hip-hop bands. “Vinyl sales have skyrocketed over the past several years. That is one of the reasons that there are so many cool records being pressed right now—tons of reissues, new music,” he says. “It is refreshing to see young people getting into buying records as well; gives this ol' fella hope for the future.”

      Hudson encourages those unversed in vinyl to take time to sit down and really listen to an album from start to finish. “Look around. You always see a turntable in movies or people listening to records. There's a boom and bust of things that come and go, but not vinyl," he says. "Maybe someday when the sun engulfs the Earth, vinyl will be obsolete, but I think obsolescence is more dangerous for people in the digital age,” he predicts. “You have to work to keep up with the next iPod, but nobody is ever gonna make a better record. It's perfect the way it is, and people love that.”