The resurrection of 33 rpm records is a delight for record dealers like Jamal Alnasr in New York, but also for his clientele of young collectors, nostalgic for a time they never knew.
This is a first since 1987 in the United States: vinyl sales (41 million copies) in 2022 exceeded those of CDs (33 million), proof of the enthusiasm for this fashionable retro format. Beauty of the object for some, quality of sound for others, this phenomenon has even revived the manufacture of turntables with analog reading heads.
In his New York store, the Village Revival Records, Jamal Alnasr savors this return to grace. “Who could have imagined that vinyl would come back to life?“, smiles this 50-year-old man who left the West Bank as a teenager to settle in New York. For thirty years, he has been selling new and used vinyl in his store in Greenwich Village. Now “a new generation, kids, (come) to get all the music from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s“, he explains. “They know more than us, who grew up in the 1990s or 1980s“, he laughs again.
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Warmer sound and covers to display on the wall
At the Village Revival Records, you can meet Vijay Damerla, 20 years old. The student concedes that he listens to music mostly online but, even though he doesn’t own a record player, he has started collecting vinyl, mainly for the visual art of the covers. “It’s the equivalent of an artist poster, or even an album poster on your wall“, he explains, before adding: “except that in fact, it’s a bit of a relic of the past“.
For Celine Court, 29, originally from the Netherlands and who claims to own 250 vinyls, what matters most is a nostalgia for a warmer sound, which we would not find in digital listening. “It’s so different“, she says. “There’s this sense of authenticity that emanates“. Streaming, which continues to take the lion’s share (84% of the $15.9 billion in total music sales in the United States in 2022) is “too fast, too easy“, she believes.
Metallica just bought a pressing plant
There is such a craze for vinyl across the Atlantic that supermarkets like Walmart have adopted this format. As for stars like Taylor Swift, Harry Styles or Billie Eilish, they keep pressing factories running at full speed, which are overflowing with orders. This week, heavy-metal band Metallica even bought out one such wafer maker, Furnace Record Pressing, to satisfy demand for its own reissues.
Record store Jamal Alnasr, who has befriended stars like Lana Del Rey, Rosalia and Bella Hadid, is ready to ship a record to a VIP. But he prefers that buyers feel “physical experience“.”I want people to come here, rummage through the vinyls and get informed (…) They will see more than just the facade, there are a lot of hidden gems here“, explains the enthusiast, who has a rotating stock of around 200,000 vinyls. His client Celine Court approves: “He there is a better energy when you collect your vinyls, when you listen to them and are proud of them“.