By Kaitlyn Giovinazzo
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
In an age in which more Americans are turning to subscription services and online streaming for their music, one Baltimore record store is making money the old fashion way: selling vinyl.
The Sound Garden, which is located at 1616 Thames Street in Fells Point, boasts a diverse selection of over 5,000 vinyl LPs and a wide variety of CDs, movies and cassettes that has allowed it to stay in business since 1993 despite a digital revolution that has closed several popular record stores in Washington, New York and other parts of the country.
Customers who enter the warehouse style box store are greeted with the sounds of the 1980s and 1990s and can thumb through albums much like music lovers did 30 years ago. And while management says the store is not doing the same business it did in the 1990s, sales are high enough to keep things humming.
“It’s like we’re back in time,” said store manager Adam Fridley. “But we’re also a dying league. So it’s good for us because we stock things you can’t really get anywhere else now.”
According to the Recording Industry Association of America, streaming services such as Spotify, Pandora, Sirius XM and Apple Music made up 62 percent of total revenue in music sales during the first half of 2017.
In addition, the website Statista reports that annual music album sales in the United States dropped from 500 million units in 2007 to 169 million units in 2017. While this has occurred, Statista says, digital music revenue from subscription and streaming services as well as album and single downloads has steadily increased.
“It is pretty significant that they [Sound Garden] are staying in business,” said Mark Sullivan, a Towson University mass media professor. “All of the major record store chains that were just record stores have vanished. There’s little market for the ones that are left.”
Sullivan said that in today’s age, it’s rare for people to sit down and listen to a whole album. However, as someone who studies trends, he said he regards vinyl as becoming more of a “retro-hipster thing.” He said people who really appreciate music are starting to learn that vinyl provides a different relationship to the art.
“There is something about holding that artifact,” Sullivan said. “That’s what the record stores that have stayed in business recognize. Something about having the album art that is not just a half-inch by a half-inch on your phone screen, flipping open the gate-fold sleeve, having the lyric sheet and reading along while you listen…it’s ritualistic.”
For Fridley, the Sound Garden has been a part of his life since he was 14 years old.
“I remember coming here with my uncle when I was a kid,” Fridley said. “I’m a collector and so I like to physically touch media. The reason I work here is because I get to flip through basically what people consider their garbage all the time and weirdly that’s exciting for me.”
For what may feel like the final road for existing record stores, this new “retro-hipster” trend may start to re-revolutionize the physical product industry.
According to the Nielsen Company, vinyl LP sales have steadily increased over the last few years against the general trend of streaming and downloading. In 2017 alone, 14.3 million vinyl LPs were sold in the United States, a 9 percent increase from the previous year. It was the 12th year in a row that vinyl sales have increased, the rating service said, adding that the format now represents 8.5 percent of album sales.
Matthew Bass, an associate with strategic data analysis for the RIAA, said that while sales for CDs, DVDs, and music videos has been declining, vinyl has been slowly increasing.
“Vinyl peaked in 1981 and then declined,” Bass said. “But beginning in 2010-2011 we have been seeing sales start to increase and it has been steadily increasing ever since.”
These increases in sales, according to Bass, are due to steady consumption from retail chains like Best Buy, Wal-Mart and Barnes and Noble. Online purchases from Amazon are included in these numbers as well.
“In 1988 we reported LPs and EPs to be about 530 million in sales,” Bass said. “If you look at 2016 in year-end sales it was about 430 million. The last time we have been around this level for vinyl was in the mid 1980’s.”
With sales of vinyl on the rise, record stores may have something to celebrate.
“Hanging out in a record store, talking to fellow fans and just talking about music…that’s part of fandom,” Sullivan said. As an “old-time record geek,” he says places like Sound Garden have weathered this huge decline.
Mariah Guarnaccia, a store associate, said the Sound Garden’s vinyl selection is much more “loved” and organized compared to other record stores. Separated new from used, the vinyl selection lines the walls, first separated by genre and then again in alphabetical order. With the thousands of products they have in stock, the shelves remain tightly arranged.
“I work as a social worker during the day, so I decompress when I come here,” Guarnaccia said. “Being surrounded by hard copies of music is just comforting. It’s very fun and I’ve found so much new music that I would have never found.”
“It’s super laid-back here so it doesn’t really even feel like a real job,” said store associate Philip Ley. “You’re around music, movies and your friends all day. It’s awesome.”
With what Sullivan calls a “retro-hipster” trend currently attracting the millennial generations, the interest in vintage record players, album art and associated fashions may continue to keep the image of the 80s and 90s alive longer than the digital age may have predicted.
“The overall vibe here is very relaxed,” Fridley said. “It’s pretty laid-back and everybody who comes here does because they really enjoy the environment. It’s a great place to work and personally I don’t think the Sound Garden is going to close for a very long time.”