Guelph retailers share their thoughts on the culture of vinyl collecting
On Saturday, April 16, 2016, music sellers across the globe participated in Record Store Day, an event established in 2007 to promote independent music sellers. Guelph’s own Royal Cat Records, as well as the Guelph location of The Beat Goes On participated in the annual event, catering to record collectors of all ages and musical preferences.
Vinyl records have seen a resurgence in the mainstream market over the last decade. Now, not only are music purists like Metallica advocating for that 33 1/3 rpm sound, artists like Justin Bieber and The Weeknd have started releasing their music on vinyl, along with their own exclusives for this year’s Record Store Day.
Each year, a list of exclusive Record Store Day titles gets released a few weeks in advance so customers know exactly what items to grab before they sell out. Participating stores get a restricted number of Record Store Day exclusives, so selling out could sometimes mean selling only two or three copies of a limited edition release.
Before they had even opened, there were lineups at both participating record stores in Guelph. For The Beat Goes On employee, Jake Cadieux—who has experienced Record Store Days four times while working at the store—the lineups were nothing out of the ordinary: “There will be people who line up because there will be that one thing they want. They won’t even look, they’ll be like, ‘Where’s this? Do you have it?’”
[pullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]…Stickland still wasn’t able to get everything on his list, to which he commented, “I’ve only got two hands.”[/pullquote]Adrian Stickland was one of the first customers to scour the bins at Royal Cat Records amid the morning rush. Before visiting the Beat Goes On and K-W’s Orange Monkey Music, the avid record collector left his first stop of the day with exclusive releases from Superchunk, Roots Radics, Cheap Trick, The Slits, and David Bowie. Despite being one of the first customers of the day, Stickland still wasn’t able to get everything on his list, to which he commented, “I’ve only got two hands.”
Royal Cat Records opened on Record Store Day two years ago. As an independently-owned record store attached to a vintage clothing shop on the lower level of a downtown strip, Royal Cat Records embodies what Record Store Day is all about.
For owner Bryan Munn, buying and selling records has been a big part of his life for approximately 20 years. “I’ve always collected records,” said Munn, “it’s hard for me to imagine them not being in vogue.” When he started Royal Cat Records, a lot of his own collection went onto the shelves for people to purchase and enjoy.
This Record Store Day, Royal Cat Records saw a 20 per cent increase in sales from the previous year. “We’re getting better known and I think that whole concept of Record Store Day is becoming more popular,” said Munn, noting that there are a number of contributing factors to the popularity of the LP: “The warmth of vinyl, the idea that you can have this physical artifact of your favourite music, it’s a large thing, and it doesn’t look like office supplies like a CD does.”
Many record collectors will purchase one of these physical artifacts to treasure and display without even owning a record player. “A lot of people are throwing this stat around today for some reason, [that] I guess like 70 per cent of people that purchase records aren’t actually going to listen to them,” said Cadieux, “they’re just going to put them on a shelf or whatever, which is a bit of a bummer.”
[pullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“…it doesn’t look like office supplies like a CD does.”[/pullquote]Cadieux explained that some of this year’s Record Store Day exclusives were rooted in novelty and franchising—like the Star Wars picture disc or the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack—taking away from the origins of the event. “It’s definitely gone more corporate and less intimate,” he explained, “it’s not really about supporting local record stores any more.” That said, the Guelph location of The Beat Goes On was able to bring in more product this year and saw a 50 per cent increase in Record Store Day sales compared to 2015.
Although Munn actively puts an emphasis on some of the more obscure items at Royal Cat Records, he too has found that major labels have been latching onto Record Store Day, “push[ing] away a lot of the independent, more edgy stuff that has long been the backbone of vinyl.” However, Munn also mentioned that if these more mainstream items are bringing in interest from the general public, he really can’t complain.
The overall landscape may be shifting, but record sellers like Munn and Cadieux remain confident that the public’s interest in vinyl records will continue to be strong for the foreseeable future. “People are always going to want physical media,” said Cadieux, “there’s no way it would ever all just disappear.”