Vinyl stores thriving ahead of Record Store Day

As LL Cool J said, “Don’t call it a comeback, I’ve been here forever,” and that lyric perfectly describes vinyl records.

It’s Record Store Day on Saturday, and the vinyl industry is doing better now than it ever has.

Last year, 43 million vinyls were sold, six million more than the number of CDs that were sold.

Darrin O’Grady of the Vinyl Diner joined Mark Loshack on the CKOM Morning Show on Friday to discuss vinyls.

O’Grady believes people enjoy having a physical copy of the music.

“We went from the vinyl to the cassette to the CDs to streaming,” said O’Grady. “You can’t keep your computerized music forever.”

Nowadays, many musicians are releasing their albums on vinyl as well and O’Grady said some bands make vinyl their top priority.

“They are producing vinyl before they’ll even produce a CD,” said O’Grady. “Some bands will actually put it on vinyl only and you won’t even be able to stream it.”

One artist who has really helped with the resurgence of vinyl in young people is Taylor Swift. O’Grady said Swift has really helped the vinyl industry.

“She keeps the lights on around here,” he laughed.

O’Grady said some bands add something extra to a vinyl record to make it more valuable to a collector.

“Sometimes they did special pressings back in the day, possibly a different colour variant,” said O’Grady.

The Vinyl Diner has a special day planned for Record Store Day.

“We have over 200 special titles being released for Saturday,” said O’Grady. “This year, Tragically Hip are releasing a live concert that they did at CBGB’s back in 1993 and this will be the first time it’s ever been available.”