On any given Tuesday afternoon, North Little Rock's Arkansas Record-CD Exchange is crowded with customers.
They're let past a velvet rope, manned by owner Bill Eginton. Once inside, a growing number of these music buffs will ignore the CDs and head straight to the racks of vinyl LP records in the middle of the Exchange.
They check out the new releases, or pore over whatever used records Eginton has bought lately. Or they squeeze into the narrow aisle where thousands of bagged and graded albums -- some of them rare -- fill shelves that run from the floor to close to the ceiling.
Reade Mitchell, the manager of Arkansas Record-CD Exchange, 4212 MacArthur Drive, said that next to Friday evenings and Saturdays, Tuesdays are the store's busiest day. Because the Exchange is closed Sunday and Monday, the regulars are anxious to get back to browsing.
Mitchell said he understands, not just because he shares his customers' love of music, but because he's just as passionate about the cumbersome 12-inch discs that for decades were the primary delivery device for pop, rock, soul, country and classical.
Over the past several years, as the music industry has been driving toward digital, there has been a revival of interest in these analog artifacts. Sales are up. The culture of record enthusiasts is growing. There's an excitement and a community surrounding album-buying that the business hasn't seen in years.
"I'll put it this way," Mitchell said. "If I didn't work here, I'd still be here all the time."
HARD TO REFUTE
The numbers are hard to refute.
While sales of digital songs in the United States fell 12.6 percent between 2013 and 2014, record album sales were up 53 percent year to year, and have increased 220 percent since 2010. The total of digital songs sold in 2014 still numbered 1.1 billion, versus 9.2 million LP records, and 2014's biggest selling record on vinyl, Jack White's Lazaretto, moved only 87,000 units versus the 1.41 million downloads for Taylor Swift's chart-topping 1989.
Still, what seemed like a niche market a few years ago -- and a dead market around the turn of the millennium -- has become one of the music business's most resounding success stories of the 2010s.
John Harris, owner and operator of Little Rock's Been Around Records, 1216 S. University Ave., estimated that his sales of used records is "roughly on par" with his sales of used CDs. And he said that for the younger rock acts like Jack White and The Black Keys, their new albums sell better on vinyl than on CD.
Digital outpaces all the different formats of physical media when it comes to music. But the vinyl phenomenon is real and having unexpected effects.
Saturday is the eighth Record Store Day, an event originally conceived by independent record stores and smaller labels to raise awareness that they still existed in a world dominated by big-box retailers like Best Buy and Wal-Mart.
But Record Store Day has become so popular that even major labels have been capitalizing on the promotion with their own limited-edition record releases. The handful of remaining vinyl-pressing plants in the United States have had difficulty keeping up with the demand.
"It's kind of a retro thing to do," Harris suggested when asked about the surge. "Also, people are discovering that vinyl sounds better."
Wade Ogle, owner of Fayetteville's Block Street Records (which opened late last year at 17 N. Block St., the space previously occupied by Sound Warehouse), agreed that vinyl "properly presents" music. But he also thinks listening to an album the old-fashioned way is more "immersive."
"You put the record on, and every few seconds you get up and examine the cover art, and read the liner notes. It's active participation."
AUDIO QUALITY
Even people who buy a lot of records disagree on the reasons why they do it.
The audio quality is a major part. Compact discs and MP3s have the advantage of convenience. Both formats are highly portable, and make it easy for listeners to navigate directly to the songs they want to hear. But even though the newer media have a "cleaner" sound, there's a tactility to vinyl. The music that comes through the speakers is produced by the friction of a needle against a groove, and as a result the actual sonic vibrations pop in a way that they don't in digital.
Some collectors actually like the flaws in old records, too: the crackle, the pops, the skips. For music lovers of a certain age, the sound of a dusty LP is a reminder of what albums were like when they first became fans. The audible hiss is as inviting as a warm fire on a chilly night.
There are also younger record buyers today who have no past associations with the medium, but have learned to love it. Arkansas Record-CD Exchange customer Jerry Halphin of Little Rock, 38, grew up with audiocassette tapes. Lately he does more of his music listening around the house, and said that he finds he likes taking the time to sit down, turn the TV off and just play an album.
Halphin only has about 50 LPs in his collection. He has been buying some of his favorites from his youth, along with records from "best of all time" lists. He prefers the recent reissues, many of which are pressed on 180-gram virgin vinyl.
"I like that it feels heavier," Halphin said.
Michael "Sterno" Keckhaver has so many albums -- more than 2,000 -- that they practically have their own room in his house.
The 61-year-old Keckhaver works for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture and co-hosts the Music Is the Best radio show on KABF-FM, 88.3. Like Halphin, he likes the size and weight of LPs.
"Being able to hold it, look at it, read it, feel it."
He compared owning a record to owning an artifact. It's a feeling very different from having an MP3 stored on a computer or iPod.
"I don't do digital at all," he says.
Keckhaver also enjoys buying limited-edition releases and finding albums that are not available on CD.
"I like having stuff that not a lot of other people have."
A PLACE TO CONGREGATE
Block Street's Ogle has been heavily involved with music most of his life, as a rock 'n' roll singer-songwriter and the co-owner of JR's Lightbulb Club (next door to his store). He got his first record at age 8, and now, at 51, takes pride in being able to give Northwest Arkansans like himself a place to congregate. He said he figured that about 80 percent of Block Street's customers come in looking for LPs.
One of the downsides to the vinyl boom is that it's getting harder for collectors to find rarities without paying big money. Ten years ago, records were considered clutter, and collectors could haul them away for little money. Today, with more people scouring the racks, in-demand used records and limited editions are scarcer.
Vinyl devotees have to be resourceful to get what they want at a fair price. Many regularly surf through eBay and Amazon, hoping to find a seller who doesn't know the value of an old Pink Floyd album.
Arkansas Record-CD Exchange's Eginton dislikes this "buy it now" mentality.
"We encourage people to let us know what they want," he said. His store stocks new releases based on trends, but he also pays attention when customers ask him if he has a particular album.
What's been a saving grace for places like the Exchange and Been Around is that a lot of vinyl buyers aren't just looking for a record, they're looking for a pastime. It's not just a matter of wanting to hear a certain song or to own a certain LP. A lot of shoppers come into a store planning to spend an hour looking at everything, hoping to find a bargain or to stumble across something unexpected.
Been Around and Arkansas Record-CD Exchange offer very different kinds of experiences. Both have been in business for more than 30 years -- the former since 1980, the latter since 1984. Both owners have seen their industry change from vinyl and cassettes to CDs and then back again.
Because Been Around is in a relatively small space, Harris has albums stacked everywhere, along with a healthy alphabetized assortment filed in shelves along the walls. It's a store well-suited to diggers, who are willing to pick up a pile of records and start rifling.
Eginton's store is more like a traditional music retailer. Everything's organized and neatly arranged. Mitchell, the manager, said it's "like being inside Bill's brain."
THE BEST PLACES
Keckhaver said that he keeps a list of the albums he's hoping to find, and consults with other vinyl lovers online to find the best places to check out when he's taking a trip to a new city.
That kind of planning is part of the appeal of being a vinyl hunter. Committed collectors also enjoy figuring out ways to store and display their finds, and can be as fussy about their stereo equipment as they are about their preference for vinyl. Keckhaver said he has had the same stereo system "since 1984," with the same vintage speakers.
Because the rise in vinyl is so connected to those rituals and physical objects, it's a branch of modern retailing unlikely to be steamrolled by online sales.
One minor concern for independent record store owners like Eginton and Harris is that media superstores like Barnes & Noble and Hastings have begun stocking vinyl -- including used records in Hastings' case.
Harris said he remembers that when those stores first built their CD selections, they drove a lot of smaller retailers out of business. Been Around survived mainly by selling the new and used CDs that the bigger places wouldn't stock.
"Now it's time to reinvest in vinyl again," Harris said. "And maybe I'm a little late on it, I don't know."
As for Eginton, he credited the crowds at Arkansas Record-CD Exchange to continuity.
"When other stores started phasing their records out in the '90s, I started buying as many of the good ones as I could, because collectors still wanted them. If I'd gotten rid of all the records and only put in CDs, I wouldn't be talking to you today."
Information: facebook.com/beenaroundrecords; arcd.com, facebook.com/blockstreetrecords.
Style on 04/12/2015