VINYL’S EVERLASTING FIDELITY BY Z A K KO L ESAR P H OTO BY JU LI AN FO GLI ET T I
loyalty & women help the music medium stay alive
T
he idea of a romantic comedy starring a woe-is-me record store owner sells just as well in 2020 as it did in 2000. High Fidelity, a Nick Hornby novel that was adapted to the screen at the turn of the century, was rebooted as a television series just this year—and the love of vinyl plays just as sweet. “To me there is nothing like going into a record store and seeing something that you're like, Man, I really want to either have that or the artwork on it is so eye catching or I've heard of this band but I don't know this record,” said Pat Dull, Columbus musician and local record producer. The movie, which starred John Cusack, Jack Black, and Lisa Bonet, turned 20 this year. And while 20 years may not seem like a particularly long time, the story of a failing record store owner told through a narcissistic, sometimes misogynistic male lens sure seems outdated in 2020. However, the rebooted TV series starring Zoë Kravitz, Bonet’s daughter, in that role, minus the misogyny, seems incredibly fitting for 2020. And it also may explain the recent
uptick in people of all ages showing off their personality through their record collections. Numbers don’t lie. Vinyl sales have posted an increase for the past 14 years. According to a report from Forbes, in 2019 alone, one quarter of all recorded music sales in the U.S. was thanks to vinyl–with sales doubling from the previous year. And if that doesn’t convince you that vinyl is here to stay, purchases of digital downloads and CDs all saw a decline in sales in 2019 according to the same report. But while vinyl won its round in 2019 as the primary source of non-digital music consumption, 2020 could prove to be a challenging year for any small business that isn’t in the paper towel or hand sanitizer sector. Even before COVID crashed the party, the record store industry was hit with a curveball a month prior to the pandemic shutdown. Eight days before the premiere episode of the TV version of High Fidelity in February, one of only two manufacturing plants to supply the lacquer used for creating vinyl– burned down. After the fire at Apollo Masters, located in Banning, California, there was only one plant left in the world—one that was only producing 25% of the lacquer for vinyl before the fire—Japan. And that has the potential to cause future supply issues as vinyl demands increase. First the news of the fire struck fear in the usually optimistic owner of Lost Weekend SAVE THE DATE!
Records, Kyle Seigrist. And then COVID-19 hit the U.S. in early March, just over a month before Record Store Day, the annual event created to celebrate the culture of the independently owned record store. Compared to his April 2019 numbers, Siegrist’s sales were down 80% with no RSD revenue. Greg Hall, owner of Used Kids Records since 2014, also reported an initial 70-85% drop in revenue when his doors closed due to quarantine. Something that COVID-19 has proven however, is that boredom and isolation leads to more hobby exploration, which also happens to be the exact reason why Sigriest got into the vinyl business in 2003. “I wanted to open a store like (now-defunct Columbus record stores Singing Dog, Capital City, or School Kids), and I thought, ‘What could my niche be?,’” Siegrist said. “I've always liked vinyl, so I thought my niche would be vinyl; everybody else is doing CDs and records, I'll just make my niche vinyl.” And so far it has been the decision that kept Siegrist afloat during what could have been a downturn during COVID. Despite the disruption in April—Siegrist said his business was down $2,000—he noted that his business had an advantage during the shutdown because he rents the apartment above the storefront, which meant he could swiftly transition to curbside pickup for sales. •
RESTAURANT WEEK
SEPTEMBER 14-19 2020
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