Record Records

In 2017 more music was bought on vinyl records than was legally downloaded. This is due in part to the popularization of streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music, but also to the growing revival of vinyl records among young people. 

Currently, this traditional kind of media is experiencing a 28-year-high and is approaching the level of sales experienced at the height of vinyl pressing in the 1980’s.

Huddled away in the back of Lowe Mill Arts Studios in Huntsville, Alabama, there is a small music store. Vertical House Records is owned by Andy Vaughn and is aptly named after the rows of vinyl records that climb from floor to ceiling. 

Small aisles cut through the store and are packed with young music lovers. Since the albums are all sorted alphabetically, not chronologically, odd combinations of music can be found next to each other. Taylor Swift next to Elvis and The Beatles next to Adele. 

However, considering the fact that all of these records are being bought and sold at a rate higher than music is being legally downloaded off of the internet, the oddity is no longer the combinations of vinyl records, but the popularity of them.

Mr. Vaughn opened this shop in 2007 and has seen a steady rise in the store’s notoriety and sales over the past decade. When asked why he thinks this younger generation has found an obsession with vinyl records, Vaughn pointed to tangibility. Saying, “buying music on a record means that you can play it and feel like you own it.” He also talked about how most of the records that are being pressed and sold today come with digital downloads so that the music can “be put on a phone or burned onto a disc, instead of just getting onto iTunes and paying for the digital download.” He says that it’s the combination of being able to own a physical record and listen to it wherever you are that has caused this art form to be revitalized.

Customers at Vertical House Records told a similar story. When asked why they preferred vinyl records Shayna and Dylan, two customers in their twenties, said that buying records in a store is “more of an adventure.” Dylan specifically talked about, “being able to come into a store and meet new people…and talk about their experience with [the music].” That sense of community is very evident in this little record store with its people milling about and sharing with one another how certain music has related to them.

Buying music on vinyl records incorporates the experience of sharing music with other people. Music is a communal art that speaks to everyone differently, and by looking through a stack of vinyl records elbow-to-elbow with someone necessitates human interaction and encourages the sharing of ideas and passions. Also, according to Shayna, music on vinyl sounds better.