LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - Vinyl records’ popularity has reignited over the past decade or so, and Lincoln is no exception to the national trend.
About 20 years ago, about one-third of Recycled Sounds owner Stuart Kolnick’s merchandise was posters, another third was records and a final third CDs. Now, he said, he sells about 70 percent vinyl and a mix of CDs, posters and miscellaneous apparel make up the other 30 percent.
“Maybe it’s because it’s a college town or because there’s a college atmosphere of sorts,” Kolnick said.
Kolnick said Omaha might have more people than Lincoln, but he thinks there are more people buying records in Lincoln than in Omaha.
Recycled Sounds will be one of three independent record stores in Lincoln participating in Record Store Day, the Lincoln Journal Star (https://bit.ly/1G0wYYd ) reports.
National Record Store Day is the third Saturday of each April, this year on April 18. Bands and artists release CDs or vinyl copies of their albums exclusively to participating record stores throughout the country. Record stores order these albums several weeks in advance, hoping to get some of the limited supply of albums. Demand is so high and supply is so limited that getting 60-70 percent of an order is considered to be a success.
Along with Recycled Sounds, Lefty’s Records and Backtrack Records will also participate in the national event. Each will be offering sales and extending store hours for the occasion.
Lincoln wouldn’t be what it is without the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lefty’s Records owner Les Greer said. This has helped shape the city’s music scene and the types of customers frequenting its music shops.
“There’s a good music scene here,” Greer said.
The students he sees buying are usually upperclassmen. University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s indie music radio station KRNU has an impact, Greer said, as well as the variety of bands that come through town.
The number of total vinyl records sales grew significantly from 2013 to 2014, nearly 52 percent, according to a 2014 Nielsen report. Nielsen reported sales at independent record stores made up nearly 57 percent of all vinyl sales.
Vinyl’s rebirth can’t be attributed solely to the generation that grew up listening to vinyl. That doesn’t mean that the older crowd isn’t buying Rolling Stones albums or Led Zeppelin re-releases. It is.
“It’s not just the older generation listening to it again and getting back into it again,” Backtrack Records owner Rob Stevens said. “You have the younger crowd — which is teenagers, college kids, even early twenties — are really starting to listen to vinyl again.”
“I get all ages,” Greer said. “I get teenage girls buying Lorde and Katy Perry records.”
Kolnick said cost limits his contemporary vinyl stock, so his inventory is heavier on the classics. But that doesn’t stop young people from stopping in to check out his selection.
“The really young segment is either kids who have 40-50 year-old parents and they discover they like classic rock,” Kolnick said, “Or it’s an 18-22 year-old buying punk or buying Father John Misty or looking for a Bjork record or somebody new.”
Contemporary bands like Foster the People, the Black Keys and the White Stripes all have albums on vinyl, and the younger crowd is buying them up, Stevens said. Especially the White Stripes, it seems.
The White Stripes’ “Lazaretto” became the highest-selling vinyl album since Nielsen started keeping track in 1991. The album sold about 86,700 vinyl copies in 2014. Billboard reports nearly a third of the band’s entire album sales were vinyl records.
So what exactly is drawing people back to vinyl?
“There’s nothing that sounds like a record,” Stevens said. “There really isn’t.”
Vinyl has a rich, warm, clean sound that is hard to replicate outside of a turntable.
“You can get CDs now that sound really close, so I’m not a total snob,” Greer said. But he said that playing vinyl sounds much better than downloaded music, and it isn’t close.
Downloaded music has to be compressed, the man known as “Lefty” said, and it loses quality after compression.
Many are buying vinyl to listen, others to keep as collector’s items and still others to mark up and sell.
Stevens said he’s had customers come in and buy two copies of vinyl records; one to listen to and one to hold onto as a novelty. Others may be worth too much to open and listen to, such as an out-of-print vintage Frank Sinatra album worth as much as $400.
But most people still want to buy, open up their albums and listen, Stevens said.
“We’re glad we’re here to provide for them,” Stevens said.
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Information from: Lincoln Journal Star, https://www.journalstar.com
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