There I sat, on a tattered cushioned barstool with rows of vinyl albums engulfing me. Across from me was Herm Baker, store manager of Vertigo Music. As we began to get comfortable, he cracked a smile, shook my hand with a hefty grip, and it suddenly was no surprise why his record shop was renown for its good vibes and great music.
At fifteen, Baker bought his first record. From then on, his passion for music continued to grow, which led him to open his first record store in 86’. Fourteen years later spurred the idea of Vertigo, named after his favorite movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Located in downtown Grand Rapids, Vertigo is one of two recognized record stores in West Michigan. How has it maintained its success? Well, it wasn’t easy, especially when CDs and records began their descent into retirement at the end of the 20th century due to the new innovations making their way into the industry.
“We opened in June of 2000 and about a year later [the industry] announced iTunes,” Baker said. “It was like ‘Oh, shit’. By then we started losing CD sales by 10% every year.”
Similarly to Baker, many other “old school” music stores started feeling the heat of streaming services coveted by the younger generations. Stores like Best Buy replaced these little shops that provided physical product rather than information-based product, thus triggering the loss of clientele to more advanced technology. But in 08’, something surprising happened.
“We noticed that people were looking at vinyl more, especially young adults,” Baker said. “So we accessed what was going on with the market here and made an adjustment.”
What seemed to be an interesting turn of events became a gradual shift, and just like the Terminator, records were back and ready to kick some butt in the music industry. This resulted in a push for more companies and music stores, like Vertigo, to adapt to the resurgence of records and the production of fresh content.
“We decided to become that store that sold new vinyl. Where we may have had 5 or 6 thousand new and used records in our store 15 years ago, now we have roughly over 40,000. That means we have $300,000 of vinyl at cost.”
With such a jump, Baker has been genuinely pleased that people are buying vinyl once more and bringing it back to the music world. But the question is how? How has vinyl become the comeback kid of the music industry?
Well, pop culture has definitely become a culprit in this record resurgence as many talented and recognized artists are beginning to release their albums on these black, 12 inch disks once more, which has then persuaded consumers to buy vinyl rather than a single on iTunes for two reasons. 1. It’s cool and “vintage” 2. Our favorite artists are listening to vinyl and putting their music on records, so we should be listening to their music with them on vinyl, too.
Feeding into this idea, one of the 21st century’s most famous British singer songwriters, the wonderful Adele, is proud to put her albums on vinyl and have her fans listen to her albums in their entirety. While on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in the fall of 2015, Adele says, “I make records, I don’t really want to be about singles. I want people to really hear [everything],” meaning that she wants her fans to listen to each and every song rather than pick a favorite and disregard the other great tracks.
In Baker’s opinion, it’s also become somewhat of a trend among millennials to buy vinyl. It’s the ‘cool’ thing to do, again, thanks to pop culture.
“A lot of kids are [purchasing records] because their friends are doing it,” he said. “There’s also a story from Pitchfork that says that 35% of new vinyl purchases never gets listened to. It almost seems to be a vanity fetish item.”
So whether it’s wall art hanging in your bedroom or actually being played on your turntable, there is no doubt that Generation Y has made the push for vinyl to come back into style.
Kate Rogers, writer for CNBC, writes that, “despite an explosion in digital and streaming music — including Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora and Tidal — consumers are spending more money on vinyl records, and more vinyl buyers are millennials.”
To Baker, this is exciting. It is awesome to see a variety of different people all over Michigan stop by his shop ready to purchase a new album or get introduced to the world of records.
“It’s a diverse crowd that comes in,” Baker said. “It’s young professionals, it’s high school kids just getting their first turntables because all their friends are doing it, and there’s also the guys that have been buying vinyl all along that are 40 or 50-years-old. It’s a broad spectrum.”
So whether you believe it’s a trend pop culture has set or that vinyl albums truly are immortal in the world of music, records have made an amazing revival.
“Anything that keeps people engaged in music is a good thing,” Baker said as he comments on the most important take away this resurgence of vinyl has had on the industry.
“There are so many other distractions in life for young adults, whether it’s social media, video games, TV, etc., if it keeps people interested in music, that’s a great thing. For us at Vertigo, we are just happy to talk music.”
