MONTREAL - The return of vinyl is no longer a fringe trend, as local record stores have noted.
The warm, sweet call of pressed vinyl started beckoning music lovers a decade ago and the trend is now full force, as vendors attest.
“This wave started up in maybe 2002, 2003 and it just started going back up. Companies started doing re-presses and most artists started pressing vinyl in those years,” said Pierre Markotanyos; of Aux 33 Tours, who has 60,000 records to sell.
Buyers come from all demographic and age backgrounds.
“We have 10-year-olds that come in with their parents. They want to buy Beatles albums on vinyl, and we have 84-year-old customers that come in to buy jazz and classical and everybody in the middle,” he said.
Those who put needles to records cite better sound and more enjoyable accompanying rituals.
“It is a different sound and it's a different experience,” said audiophile Clifton Hyde. “When I was a freshman in college, 18, 19 years old, you'd put a record on and you'd listen to the entire side with your friends and that was just how it was. Then you would change it. It was like an experience. You sat and you listened and it was like a commitment. “
Jennifer Cytrynbaum, who manages the Coup de Foudre audio store, agrees that the experience is unique.
“The big idea is to be able to sit down, put a side of down a side of an album, and kick back and just listen. And in those moments, time slows down. And so I'm giving them a window into a world that was,” said Cytrynbaum.
