Vinyl spins towards relevance again in Ottawa

Those black round things that old-timers call records that are played on turntables are back in a big way.

Yes, vinyl is once again being displayed prominently in record shops and they are selling, both as second-hand items and more and more as new releases as major recording artists release their music in the vinyl format. And they are not just selling to old-timers reliving their nostalgic past, but young music lovers are increasingly putting their money down to buy vinyl.

“It’s the 19 to 29 year olds that are driving it,” says Dan Gibson, manager of the Legend Records store at the Hazeldean Mall in Kanata. He adds that vinyl is by far the biggest sellers as compared to compact discs at the two Legend Records outlets in Ottawa. 

He says there are a number of reasons for that such as album cover art, the sturdiness of something tangible in your hands when you hold a record, but first and foremost is the quality of sound that listening to music on vinyl offers.

“Kids have been plugging into digital music and their phones to listen to music. Then when they hear music on vinyl, it is a completely different experience. The sound is so much better, it is not digitally compressed.”

He adds that albums being released on vinyl these days are of even higher quality when it comes to sound than in the past because they are purer vinyl rather than the composite vinyl and other materials records that were released in the past.

On Saturday, April 21, Legend Records, which also has an outlet on Winona St. at Richmond Rd. in the Westboro neighbourhood, will be one of numerous record store outlets in Ottawa that will be marking Record Store Day.

Started back in 2008 when hard rock band Metallica played a show at an independent record store in the Bay area of San Francisco as part of a promotion soon after the famous American record store chain Tower Records went out of business, Record Store Day has spread globally ever since, as has the sales of the once-thought-of-as-near-dead vinyl record format.

According to the music industry publication Billboard, “2017 marks the 12th straight year of growth in vinyl album sales.” And vinyl album sales reached 14.32 million (up 9 per cent) in 2017 in the United States, according to Billboard.

Those numbers are nowhere near how many people get their music through paid music streaming services, but CDs, another music delivery format thought to be on the way out, and vinyl outsold digital downloads when it comes recorded music sales in 2017, according to record industry numbers.

After browsing the vinyl offerings while shopping with friends at the Sunrise Records outlet at the St. Laurent Mall, Daniella Martin says she likes the way actual 33 rpm records sound, and loves the artwork of full-size album covers.

“I got into it by going through my parents records in the basement when I was younger and just really like having music on records,” says the 23-year-old.

She plans to attend a Record Store Day event at the Odds & Sods Shoppe On Merivale Rd. near where she lives on Saturday.

“I just find records to be cooler than CDs,” she says.

Many stores take part in Record Store Day, but to be officially listed as a participant a store must register and take a Record Store Day pledge. The eight stores in Ottawa that have done so for Saturday, April 21, are: The two Legend Records locations at Hazeldean Mall, Kanata, and 383 Winona Ave.; two Compact Music locations at 206 Bank St. and 785.5 Bank St.; The Odds & Sods Shoppe, 1527 Merivale Rd.; The Record Centre, 1099 Wellington St. W., and three Sunrise Records locations at the Rideau Centre, Carlingwood Mall and St. Laurent Mall. Those stores will have special Record Store Day vinyl releases available as well as other special events and sales.