The vinyl revival
The resurgence of vinyl records is a cultural sensation, so we talk to collectors, DJs and record store owners to find out why.
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00:00 [Music]
00:18 The resurgence of vinyl records is a cultural sensation that's as much about
00:24 nostalgia as it is about sonic quality. In an age where music is often consumed
00:29 in bite-sized digital formats, vinyl offers a tangible connection to the past.
00:36 For many, collecting vinyl is not just about owning music, it's about curating a
00:41 personal archive of musical history, each record telling a story both through its
00:45 sound and its sleeve. Coming up, we'll talk to a DJ about the future of music,
00:51 find out how a Premier League referee ended up opening a record store and how
00:55 the new Taylor Swift album inspired a work of art. We'll also chat with
01:01 collectors, look into the explosion in sales of record players and we'll even
01:05 find out how important Record Store Day is to small independent businesses on
01:09 the high street.
01:12 [Music]
01:14 Tell me, when was the last time you purchased music in physical form?
01:20 Whether it be vinyl, CD, cassette?
01:22 [Music]
01:24 Oh, 30 or 40 years ago.
01:28 [Laughs]
01:30 I think never, because I've mostly been with internet now and because it's so
01:35 easy to get it off the YouTube channels and it's more like, saves you a bit of money.
01:40 Technology's got a lot to do with that, with the turntables and the speakers and
01:45 the quality, the original quality of the recording comes through more.
01:51 Why do you think it's stood the test of time and is still so popular with people?
01:56 I think it counts on generation, I think. Especially because of like, your mum or
02:00 your dad wearing those kind of like, clothes and listening to music and I
02:04 think it's kind of like, gone down to generations of people being interested.
02:07 Oh, about 20 years ago.
02:09 Wearing HMV was still quite a big thing, so I quite liked going on the weekend
02:13 and maybe buying a couple of CDs back then.
02:16 Record exchange, Jamaica Street, used to always go all the time, but not anymore
02:21 because it's downloaded.
02:23 No, I generally, if I listen to music it would be streaming, yeah, yeah, Spotify.
02:28 It's actually where I listen to any music. Oh, and the radio, I might listen to the radio, yeah.
02:33 I've gone deaf now, I'm sure. [Laughs]
02:37 It's a moot point. [Laughs]
02:40 [Music]
02:51 My name's Sam and I DJ in the name of Coco Fono and we're in my front room
02:59 stroke home studio with all my lovely records and I've been collecting vinyl
03:10 records since at least when I was about nine years old, I think, and never stopped really.
03:18 It is a bit of an obsession and some people say it is an addiction, which is
03:22 probably pretty close to the truth. And yeah, it is becoming more and more for the
03:29 privileged, I think. I'm buying less now because it is, buying new stuff is expensive.
03:37 And if you're DJing and expect to get paid for it, as an example, a new 12-inch
03:45 record could be up to £14, of which if you're beat mixing you'll only play maybe
03:51 three minutes of. So over two hours at 14 minutes for every three minutes, yeah,
03:58 it comes, you're not going to get paid that, you're not going to recoup that
04:01 money. So again, it is kind of a privileged thing.
04:04 More of a passion project.
04:05 More of a passion project for a lot of people. Or you just choose to not have
04:10 other things, like a car or a house, I think.
04:16 The digital side, you can have a controller and you can press the quantise
04:21 button, which will automatically link in the BPMs. So it's already, they're
04:30 already beat matching to a certain extent. And there's lots of other tricks as
04:36 well, where you can do a lot of work before you go out and do a set digitally.
04:42 So it's pretty much all done. That's still work, you've still got to do it,
04:46 you've still got to choose, you've still got to select, you've still got to
04:48 choose good tunes. There's that still. And I do DJ digitally as well. But the
04:56 vinyl side is just because I've been doing it so long, I'm comfortable with
05:00 that. And I have started using DVS, which is an encoded disc, which is exactly
05:07 the same as a, shall I get one?
05:09 Yeah, yeah, that's good.
05:10 There's, they look exactly the same as a record, and it's just got an encoded
05:22 band. And that will play the tunes off your laptop or USB stick using normal
05:37 turntables, but you've got to have a specialist kit for it. And it acts,
05:42 feels exactly the same. But it can open up a lot more
05:47 opportunities for doing different styles of mixing. But yeah, I just, I do just
05:54 enjoy the process, the physical side of it. And yeah, and it's always a
05:59 challenge.
06:00 Tell us about those challenges.
06:04 Well, it can vary. If it's in a club, there's a lot of other things where if
06:07 it's not set up properly, the dance floor can actually make the needles jump
06:12 up and down. And I've done that a few times. I've been, we used to do boat
06:16 parties in the Solon.
06:17 Oh, that's the original one.
06:20 Yeah. So the boat was all over the show. And they can, especially the
06:25 techniques, can handle to be right on angle and still play. But this was
06:30 ridiculous. And it was next to the engine room as well. So it was all
06:32 reverberating and shifting up and down. And yeah.
06:39 What was the outcome of that though? Did you manage to play a full set?
06:44 Yeah, kind of. It was not brilliant. Because it was quite choppy. And I was
06:52 downstairs. And the bottom bit of the boat, and the guys at the top was
06:57 even worse because that was even worse. And there are various different
07:03 locations like parties in the countryside. You've got lots of different
07:08 challenges there with weather and leaves and things like that. And
07:14 parties in cellars and all sorts of other places where I've been to a
07:21 house party, I think it was in London, where there was literally plaster
07:25 wall coming from the ceiling from upstairs where there's another party
07:29 and the floors were going, landing onto the decks and completely
07:32 ruining the records.
07:33 Oh.
07:34 Yeah, that was, yeah. Like I said, it's the privilege thing. And because
07:40 there are so many people that are DJing, whether it's analog or digital,
07:46 that it's a very crowded market in that, unless you're right at the top.
07:53 And usually you have to be a producer as well or a recording artist as
07:58 well to actually get those gigs. A lot of them now are just open decks
08:05 where people just turn up. They don't get paid. They just want to show
08:12 people their music or hope to get better gigs. But there's a lot of that
08:16 going on. Like anything in the creative industries, any artist, whether
08:23 it's musicians or visual arts, they do a lot more for free now than just
08:29 to get somewhere else. And there's a joke across that whole industry of
08:33 getting to do gigs for exposure. And the joke is, "I only need three more
08:40 exposures to pay my rent." So, whereas it was my full-time job for over a
08:52 decade, really full on, every week and clubs and bars and whatever. And it
08:59 did pay my rent. And so I was making a living out of it. It was proper. And
09:05 I was spending a lot. You have to reinvest into new music all the time.
09:13 So my spend on records was quite high back then. But now, yeah, it's a
09:26 passion project for a lot of people. I still get paid to go and DJ, but it
09:32 actually hasn't changed the same amount as I was getting in 1992 to 2024.
09:40 It's the same, pretty much the same amount, which obviously is not going to
09:46 be enough to keep buying if you're buying vinyl. Which is a bit of a shame.
09:53 I'm Adam White and I am store and events manager at The Vinyl Whistle in
10:00 Headendley. The name Vinyl Whistle comes from our former owner, John Moss,
10:04 who was a Premier League referee since retired. He was in a band when he was
10:09 at university in Leeds, so he's always had a deep passion for music. He's now
10:13 passed it on to Neil.
10:15 When it opened, I was probably one of the first customers through the door.
10:17 So I got to know John quite well and been shopping in the shop ever since
10:22 he opened, originally over the road and now at these premises. I kind of
10:25 joked with him a little bit about the fact that he'd done what I wanted to
10:28 do. I guess we had a chat last year and he was looking to do something
10:32 different. The opportunity arose for me to take over, so I jumped at the
10:36 chance.
10:36 Record Store Day involves a lot of exclusive releases being pressed onto
10:41 vinyl. Sometimes it'll be reissues, sometimes it'll be artists who have
10:46 never released anything on vinyl. It's nice to celebrate the culture and the
10:51 community around record buying.
10:53 It's been a lot of work to be honest so far. There's nearly 450, 500 records
10:58 that are available to order, so trying to work out which ones you want, how
11:02 many you want, which ones are going to sell, which ones aren't. I guess it's
11:06 a relief to have that done now, so I guess it'll just be now the build up
11:09 getting things organised for DJs on the day.
11:12 I know for a lot of younger collectors, maybe like the students in
11:15 Headingley, a lot of it's exclusive variants or access to certain things,
11:20 especially with bigger artists like Taylor Swift who has led the vinyl
11:26 revival in the last two or three years.
11:28 A lot of buying albums is down to the experience. There's a reason that
11:34 artists put the track list in that order and it's nice to put something on
11:38 and enjoy it how it was meant to be enjoyed.
11:40 I've never felt the same physical, emotional connection when I've listened
11:44 to music in any other way. I have got music on my phone like everyone these
11:47 days, but I don't get that same emotional connection as I do when I put a
11:51 record on a turntable and just sit back and enjoy.
12:17 Taylor Swift toured in the UK. She announced she was bringing her new album
12:23 out on the 19th of April and I thought, how can I publicise that
12:29 we'll be stocking it because she's been selling vast quantities of her vast
12:34 catalogue and I'd seen some of Scott's work and I thought, when I looked on
12:41 his website, he'd never done anything like it. So I asked him if he could do
12:45 it. I sent him an image and he said yes and we thought this is the best poster
12:51 we could do for her.
12:53 It took him two and a half days because he was a perfectionist. He really was.
13:06 If he didn't think something was right, his wife double-checked everything
13:12 and it was perfect. It was perfect from the copy that I sent him. So I'm quite
13:19 happy with it. It will be up here for a couple of months because people are
13:25 coming and standing next to it to have a photograph taken so it seems a pity to
13:31 take it down.
13:32 What did the locals think about it? What feedback have you had?
13:41 They were surprised when they saw how good it was. They were really impressed.
13:46 So much so that other traders are going to want Christmas windows from him.
13:52 One gentleman last week asked me if he could buy the poster out of my window
14:03 and I said, if you give me 600 for the window, I'll work out. He hadn't realised
14:09 it was snow spray which shows how good Scott's work is.
14:14 Will you consider doing it again with another artist?
14:21 At some point but it has to be somebody as big as Taylor Swift is at the moment.
14:33 It's very good. It brings people out and actually come into a shop and physically
14:40 buy rather than order it online. It brings shoppers back to the high street.
14:48 Why are people suddenly going back to vinyl?
14:52 I think there's tired of downloading. They just want, they like now to physically pick
14:58 a vinyl up, read the sleeve notes and listen to it as they want to listen to it, not just downloading.
15:08 Superior to CDs?
15:11 Yes.
15:12 Why?
15:13 If you've got the good player, it sounds better.
15:23 I've got around 4,000 LPs and around 1,000 singles. So my name's Ian Wakefield. I'm 37
15:32 years old. I live in Sunderland. I'm originally from Leeds but I've lived in the North East
15:37 for about 10 years now and I've been collecting records for 12 years now. It just kind of was a
15:43 hobby I fell into mainly via my dad. He had his old record collection still. It's absolutely
15:49 everything from rock to pop to prog to psych to new wave to anything metal, everything.
15:56 Yes. And it actually was not bought on the music originally. It was bought because of
16:01 this, the sleeve art and that was Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd. That's kind of where the
16:05 rabbit hole fell for me and I started listening to the music of Pink Floyd and it went from there
16:10 really. The most recent one, the New Libertines record. Yeah. So that's just come out and that's
16:16 fantastic. Obviously, as you can see, I'm wearing a Bruce Springsteen t-shirt. So I've got quite a
16:21 thing for Bruce Springsteen really. So yeah, I've got a few gig stars as well lined up. Going to
16:26 see him at the stadium in a few weeks time. So yeah, the Darkness on the Edge of Town,
16:31 Bruce Springsteen is probably my favourite ever record I would say. So during the 2020 pandemic
16:36 from my job, I got put on furlough. So I was obviously left with not a great deal to do day
16:40 to day. There's a thing called the Vinyl Community, which is based Instagram mainly,
16:44 YouTube as well a little bit. But a lot of people on there were day to day posting records,
16:48 even buying some stuff still during the pandemic because still shops did stay open and sold things
16:53 through the website. And I kind of started up a, it started as a blog, to be honest,
16:58 a conversation piece with collectors. It ended up being around the world and people that,
17:02 where they bought records, why they collected vinyl. And then it kind of grew from there.
17:07 And the idea then grew into a coffee table book that got self-published for myself. Luckily,
17:14 I have a friend who's a printer based in Cramlington. So that was quite handy.
17:17 And it just grew from there and it turned out to be a 450 page coffee table book.
17:23 There is some people that have got record collections in tens of thousands that have been
17:27 collecting since the start of like sort of vinyl. So there's a gentleman I spoke to in
17:35 sort of Canada, he had 10,500. I know streaming is sort of easier if you're on the go,
17:43 but it's the tangible kind of element and holding that, buying physical music,
17:48 the process of putting it on a turntable, putting the needle down and playing the record and even
17:55 having to get up halfway through and flip it over. It makes people listen to the music more and you
18:01 pay attention more. And as well, it's supporting the artists. Streaming doesn't really give artists
18:08 a great deal of income, but buying vinyl and buying gig tickets and things like that gives them direct
18:13 money into their pockets. My name's Johnny. I run Digifunk Technics. I have done for the last sort
18:19 of 12, 13 years, I service, customize, repair Technics 1210 and 1200 models. Some people think,
18:28 "Oh, it's a side hustle, what do you do?" I say, "No, full-time job, fortunately." It's like a
18:33 hobby. For some reason, something clicked with turntables. When I first started DJing, when I was
18:40 maybe 14, to look at the old Ministry of Sound front covers and to see the Technics turntables
18:46 stripped down and all its little component parts, just even then I used to think, I just did
18:51 something just inside of me was like, "God, that's just, it's so amazing." It just intrigued me. I
18:55 had a customer last week, week before, and he'd had a pair of Numark turntables. He knew he always
19:03 wanted Technics turntables. He commissioned me to source a pair and customize them. He went for
19:10 popular color orange, and he said, "I've waited 15 years to buy a pair of Technics turntables."
19:16 A lot of people aspire to own a pair of Technics turntables. Nobody was interested in Technics
19:22 turntables. People were selling them left, right, and center. You could get a pair of Technics
19:26 turntables for 250 pound, 350 pound. I got into it by buying up, I was already buying pioneer
19:34 equipment, and I was buying Technics up in pairs from DJs who just didn't want them anymore,
19:40 on to CDJs, and started to sell them as singles to hi-fi, audiophile listeners. Then obviously,
19:50 Vinyl Revolution, just year on year, has just built and built and built from there.
19:55 The best way of describing it is they're just so well built. They are absolutely rock solid.
20:02 When I first started doing the servicing, obviously, I started doing buy and selling.
20:07 When I first started adding service to the business, I was doing probably,
20:12 say, 80% servicing. We didn't do paint jobs in the first instance. It was purely servicing.
20:20 Then I explored the ... I saw a couple of other people doing it in the country.
20:25 There's not many. I think there's only probably four that I know of, including myself, that
20:31 customizes to the extent of full customization of paint color, tone arms. You can change the
20:39 buttons and LEDs. There's probably only four people that I know of in the country that do it.
20:42 You probably say maybe six years ago, I would say 75% of the business was servicing, 25% was
20:50 customizing and repainting. It's probably now maybe 70% of work seems to be custom jobs,
20:57 custom paint. When you do repaint them, they do look absolutely amazing.
21:02 Celebrated annually, Record Store Day marks a cultural highlight for music fans across the UK.
21:10 This homage to independent record stores and the vinyl medium itself resonates deeply with
21:16 enthusiasts nationwide. Across our part of the world, participating stores orchestrate exclusive
21:23 releases, special events and limited edition vinyl gems, fostering a sense of community among patrons.
21:31 Beyond the commercial allure, the day underscores the enduring appeal of physical music in an
21:37 increasingly digital age. It serves as a reminder of the invaluable role played by local record
21:44 stores in preserving musical heritage and fostering cultural connections with its blend of nostalgia
21:51 and contemporary resonance. I think for the older generation, people like me, we've never fallen out
21:59 of love with it. We've kept hold of our records. We're now rebuying stuff that maybe got lost in
22:04 the fire or was given away. For the younger generation, we believe it or not, we even have
22:10 customers that buy records from us that don't even own a record player. So clearly they're after the
22:16 tactility. They want something tangible. It's the artwork as well, etc. Music lover Tim opened a
22:24 traditional record store around two years ago. He's catering to a growing market as the British
22:30 Phonographic Industry Trade Group reports that vinyl sales in 2023 rose by 11.7% to 5.9 million
22:40 units. So who is buying the classic format? We get customers. I think my youngest buying customer
22:47 would be around about the age of 10, something like that, where they've done enough chores to
22:53 get their pocket money to be spent on records. I've got customers still buying from me at the
22:58 age, well into their 70s and 80s. So again, sorry to be so vague, but it goes right the way across.
23:04 The other interesting aspect I think for me on the demographic is that there's quite an even mix
23:10 in terms of men and women buying vinyl, male, female. I would say it's about even.
23:15 Record Store Day on April the 20th is the one day of the year when over 260 independent record
23:22 shops all across the UK come together to celebrate their unique culture. So yeah, Record Store Day
23:28 is a huge event for us as an independent record store. It's been going for a good few years now.
23:34 We'd been open for four months when we did our very first one last year. We've learned quite a lot.
23:39 We're expecting it to be even busier than last year and it's easily the busiest trading day for
23:45 us in the calendar. But still, I would say the mainstays are the new releases from the big
23:50 artists like Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey.
23:53 Bye.
23:53 [END]
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