Vinyl is back! A decade after the iPod generation threatened to spin 12 inches into extinction, sales of records are surging in shops across Wales. Matt Thomas speaks to the purists leading the charge
IF you listen to the sob stories spun by the big record labels, the music industry is in a pretty bad way. Illegal downloads have crippled legitimate record sales and legitimate downloads have ripped the heart out of physical record sales.
Reports from the retail sector haven’t been that encouraging either.
This year alone we’ve lost high-street music outlets Zavvi and Woolworths, and if the prediction of Graham Jones, the author of Last Shop Standing: Whatever Happened to Record Shops? is to be believed we could soon be waving goodbye to a whole tranch of independent outlets as well.
“We’re looking at a situation in which 130 record shops closed last year in Britain,” he explains
“We’re down to 305 right now and I can very easily see us reaching a point, within three years, at which there will be only 150 independent record shops in the entire UK.”
According to Graham, who is one of the founders of independent distribution company Proper Music, the problem lies not so much with the amount of music we are consuming, but with our attitude towards it.
“Downloads have devalued music,” he said.
“As a country, we’re happy to spend £5 on a panini but balk at the thought of spending that on a record when you can just download it for free.”
But there is one area which is still going strong – and that’s vinyl. And it’s an area in which the independents can clear up.
Chris Stylianou has been running Derricks Music Store on Oxford Street, Swansea since 1984. He sells concert tickets as well as records to keep the business viable. Vinyl is becoming an increasingly important part of his business.
“We’ve got some 200 or so pieces of vinyl here at the moment,” he said.
“Next year we’re probably going to have another two racks put in. It’s definitely a growth area.”
Like Graham, he believes there’s been a change in our attitude towards music, but that it actually might be helping drive vinyl sales.
“It’s a reaction to the download culture I think,” he said.
“Music has been changed by the way it’s sold in supermarkets and online.
“But people are turning back to a more involved way of buying. They’re more interested in the physical artefact of vinyl than they have been for years and that’s probably as a result of the downloading craze.”
Shops will have to change along with the public’s attitude, he believes.
“Music is just entertainment, and if there’s another aspect of the experience of buying music that gives people pleasure, like owning a piece of vinyl, then it can only be a good thing,” he said.
“People complain about the fact that record shops are disappearing, but they’re not.
“We’ve got six or seven supermarkets in Swansea. That’s six or seven record stores. They all sell CDs, that makes them record shops. They’re selling music in a different way, that’s all. We’ve got to deal with that and get on with doing what we do best. ”
The issue of sound quality is an important one when it comes to the success of vinyl. Devotees talk about its warm and punchy percussive sound, the fluidity of its bass response and the musicality of its top end.
David Parker of Hi Fi Western, Newport believes the steady sales of turntables over his 25 years in the business bears this out.
“We’re seeing strong sales of turntables and it’s across a whole range of ages and demographics,” he said.
“We do a number of reasonably-priced USB-enabled models that you can connect up to your computer and use to download your vinyl as MP3s.
“Then we’ve got models like the Project Debut, which is a very strong entry model, very popular.
“We even do a couple of DJ models. Perhaps the biggest change that has come about is that these are no longer the most popular models in the shop. We’re seeing more domestic turntables being sold.”
The fact that there are so many formats being used simultaneously makes it hard to quantify exactly where vinyl stands in today’s ranking of ways to listen to music, according to David.
“Vinyl has always been around, so it’s hard to pinpoint a time when it started becoming popular again.
“It’s not like the appearance of CDs, which popped up 20 years or so ago, and you had to pay £600 or £700 if you wanted a player.
“There’s no easily identifiable cut-off point or a particular piece of equipment that you could say holds the same significance for vinyl.”
We sell a particular model, a Linn: next page
Nic Hawkins of Audio Excellence in Cardiff is convinced of vinyl’s future – and the turntables needed to play it.
“We sell a particular model, a Linn, which starts at £2,000 but can be upgraded and improved over the course of its life to bring the cost up to something like £15,000,” he said.
“Vinyl has always been the choice of the person who’s serious about the way things sound.
“It simply sounds better. Having said that, I think it would be very rare to find someone who is solely devoted to vinyl these days.
“But through a good system it is the best-sounding way, the most musical way to listen to music.”
Musician Euros Childs is a bit less sure of vinyl’s intrinsic value.
“It’s not an entirely environmentally friendly way of producing a record at the moment,” said the singer/songwriter and former Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci frontman.
“I have no plans to release the record I’m currently making on vinyl.
“Most of the music I do listen to at home is on vinyl though, unless it’s on 10p tapes I buy from charity shops. I’m a bit obsessed with that at the moment.
“Modern vinyl can be a little hit and miss in the pressing quality compared to the old stuff.
“I’ve had a few occasions where I’ve regretted buying a new LP because it’s a bit crackly or something, and I think ‘Oh I should have just bought a CD’.”
Despite his reservations about modern-day vinyl, he has no plans to change his listening habits.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to start downloading stuff. I don’t even own a computer,” he says.
“I love vinyl. It was the format I grew up with, going to Slipped Discs in Carmarthen and Terminal Records in Haverfordwest and it’s the format on which I discovered bands like Soft Machine, bands that have been a big influence on my own music.
“When you live with something like that for 20 years or more it becomes part of you.”
Super Furry Animals leader Gruff Rhys has a similar take on the significance of local record shops, stocking esoteric vinyl, not just on a personal level but taking in the whole scene that can surround them.
“As a music fan it’s pretty disturbing when something you take for granted just disappears from your life,” he said.
“I’m from North Wales and there are two independent record shops that have influenced me, Cob in Bangor and Spillers in Cardiff.
“When we go to America we end up playing a lot of in-store shows and you often find that the independent record shop is the centre of the whole scene.
“And it can even be important because if someone behind the counter has a particular taste and pushes particular records, it can influence a whole generation in that city.
“I remember getting an album by the band Suicide in Spillers when I was 17; I had come down to visit my brother who was living in Cardiff, and this New York band had a huge influence on me.”
Given the degree of influence he wields, it’s probably a good thing that Nick Todd, of Spillers, stocks vinyl – a couple of thousand pieces in fact.
“Six years ago I was ready to drop it. I couldn’t see it sticking around. It was my daughters who persuaded me not to do it. And they were right,” he said.
“If you want sound quality, then you’ve got to go for vinyl and you see that people right across the age range are realising that.
“We do get a lot of students coming in for vinyl. I suppose it’s got a bit of that retro feel to it that they might think is a bit appealing.
“But it hasn’t always been that way.”: next page
“But it hasn’t always been that way.”
The new crowd coming in are big consumers of vinyl, especially that produced by local bands. In-store gigs help to drive those sales, but that’s not the only reason Nick does them.
“We’ve done a couple of in-store gigs recently that have really been some of the happiest times I’ve had in the shop. And I’ve been here ten to 12 hours a day for near enough 40 years,” he said.
“Bands like Frederick Stanley Star, just a fantastic band, really unique sounding. We’ve got their album in the racks.
“Putting these bands on, selling their stuff, it’s not a duty really. It’s simply something you do as a shop, give space to those bands who otherwise might find it a bit difficult to get their records on the shelves.”
One man who has benefited from Nick’s help is Mark Thomas of Cardiff record label Shape, who released the Frederick Stanley Star album.
“Yes, there is a great relationship between independent record shops and vinyl,” he said.
“Without sounding over the top, dealing with Spillers has been a joyous experience.
“They actively want to stock the records and have valued customers who they recommend them to.
“I think that yes, if there is a resurgence of vinyl, it does have a lot to do with independent stores.
“We would have struggled with our vinyl releases if it was not for the independent stores that have stocked them and sold them.
“Spillers itself has been crucial to us and we also have vinyl releases stocked in other independents throughout the country.”
Mark says that digital releases have actually helped his label release vinyl records, rather than depress their sales.
“We can now release a record world wide as MP3 downloads on the usual network of sites and make a limited vinyl to go with it.
“We are just about to press 300 vinyl LPs by (electro band) Evils and it is also coming out as a digital download.
“It just seems to make sense.”
But it’s not just small independent labels who are plumping for vinyl.
When the allotted time for meeting Mark Southall of Diverse Records in Newport rolls around he is in the middle of unpacking 100 vinyl copies of the latest Bob Dylan album, Together Through Life, and he’s confident he can shift them.
By contrast, he has only taken on 10 copies of the CD version.
“Most of our business is through mail order and it’s vinyl based,” he explains
“It’s been that way since we started back in 1988, and it’s really grown over the last 12 years or so, but the last five years has seen a lot more vinyl-based business popping up.
“Labels like Navigator, over in Derby for example, who I deal with very often.
“They actually give away CD versions of their albums with every vinyl version, so people have something to listen to in the car.
“They obviously don’t have the same covers as a normal CD, they come in a little slipcase, but the visual side of a CD isn’t the most important aspect of it, let’s be honest.
“You can’t really make the artwork out, on account of them being so small.
“It’s not like the old albums, which had designs from people like Hipgnosis (responsible for the artwork of Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy album), Roger Dean (Yes) and Peter Blake (The Beatles).”
Old records have more than simple aesthetic appeal however and people are prepared to pay for it.
That’s the principle that Kelly’s Records in Cardiff’s indoor market is based on, and it seems to be working out for them.
“We’ve got 100,000 collectable records here in total. They come in from private collections, from dealers from all sources,” says owner Allan Parkins.
“We take anything from one record someone’s found in the attic to an 8,000-piece Beach Boys collection.
“The guy had built it up over 10 years, everything that the Beach Boys had ever done, together or separately, in all the different pressings you could imagine.
“A couple of them were Japanese versions worth a couple of grand each.
“But you don’t get that every day.”
Buyers are happy to travel to feed their vinyl fixation.
“We’ve got a guy who comes over from Holland six times a year to visit us, and a guy who rings me from California in the middle of the night when he can’t sleep just to have a chat and order up some records,” he continues.
“There’s a dealer who comes over three times a year from Taiwan, and piles up records this high.
“Then he has them shipped off back home. That’s always a good day when he lets us know he’s coming.
“But business has always been good, I’ve got to say. People thought my uncle was crazy when he set this place up back in 1969.”
“He was Eddie Kelly, which is where the name comes from. He collected music hall records, old 78s to start with. But he was a very committed collector. He built up a collection that filled every available inch of wall space in his house, and that was a three storey house with a basement mind you. I’m not like that at all.
“I only keep a few records around in my car. I’m a bit of a minimalist.”
The business came into Allan’s hands in 1991, after 30 or so years spent working for local government and then an oil company.
He bought it from his uncle rather than have him sell it to another investor.
“It goes to show how far-sighted he was when he set this place up, one of the oldest collectable record shops in the country,” he says.
“He saw that there was a market there and it has stayed steady over the last 40 years.
“We’re not affected by the download market. People will come in here looking for physical copies of the songs they’ve been listening to online, in fact.
“That’s why I think vinyl is still going to be here, even if CDs fall by the wayside ”
It’s a point of view that Mark from Diverse Records shares.
“People still love listening to vinyl and I don’t think that’s ever going to change,” he said.
“It’s not an area that the supermarkets are ever going to do, they’re not interested in carrying that type of music or format.
“And that’s where we come in.”
Last Shop Standing: Whatever Happened to Record Shops? is published by Proper Music Publishing
