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Vinyl records are surging in popularity with new retail trends in Eastern Iowa
Records and plants sprout together at Mount Vernon, Fort Madison shops
Sep. 22, 2024 5:00 am, Updated: Sep. 24, 2024 1:44 pm
After decades of decline, vinyl records are taking another spin around the turntable.
As the old technology finds a new resurgence in popularity, it doesn’t sound like a broken record.
Driven largely by artists and audiences born in the digital age, vinyl records are now the highest selling form of physical media today — second only to online streaming platforms for music listeners, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.
When Madonna asked the DJ to “put a record on” in her 2000 hit song “Music,” vinyl record sales were near their all-time low. By 2023, vinyl sales hit $1.4 billion, the highest figure since 1988 when adjusted for inflation — the same decade the pop star charted her meteoric rise to fame.
Why is vinyl popular again?
Growing up in the ’80s and ’90s, Mike Bray spent hours in record stores with friends, going through record bins on their hands and knees.
“We had little money but whoever was behind the counter would talk to us because they’d like having us there,” he said. “I really missed that when everything went digital.”
But in recent years, as his teenage daughter started earning babysitting money, he noticed her spending it on the exact same thing he did decades ago. Taylor Swift, a favorite of hers, has gamified record sales with multiple releases of the same core albums, sometimes weeks apart.
On Sept. 7, Bray opened Hilltop Plants & Records in Mount Vernon with his wife, Stefanie. Owning a record store had always been a dream for them and seeing the next generation’s passion for vinyl was the push they needed to set up shop.
Vinyl record albums today from trending artists are adorned with compelling reasons to make music collections tangible again — beautiful cover art, vinyl pressed in neon colors and exclusive bonus tracks. For music listeners who came of age with iPods and iPhones, listening to music you can hold in your hands has become an art again.
Stefanie Bray believes the “physical presence” of music, where listeners want to listen to the entire album, is driving vinyl’s popularity again. She’s excited to see a physical space where music can be discovered.
With about 5,000 records in their collection, visitors can peruse boxes and listen to them with friends in sitting areas. There, retro furniture paired with vintage speakers offer a type of warmth not experienced through wireless earbuds and a handheld device.
The setting and music offers a chance to connect for all ages.
“It’s so fun to discover new artists and find new music you never knew about,” Stefanie Bray said. “It’s not like (when you’re) in your 20s, where you’re all talking about who you’re listening to.”
Plants and records
The Mount Vernon couple, who run a landscaping and greenhouse business seasonally, decided to also sell plants in their store, saying they expect many customers to come for the plants and stay for the records.
In addition to seating areas, the store’s large space affords it room to offer plant-splitting events, record signings for local bands, family karaoke and community events.
“We knew more than one kind of product could be successful, and they seem to go together,” Stefanie Bray said.
Customers also can sell their old records. Thanks to a smartphone app, figuring out the right price is easy with each record’s serial number.
For the owners, it was simply a combination of two passions. While their collection trends toward vintage, new albums are kept on hand for the younger crowd in a college town.
Fort Madison store
Pool 19, another plant and record store in Fort Madison in southeast Iowa, was opened three years ago by former Twitter executive Mike Park. Erik Larson and Heather Church bought the business earlier this summer and said the retail combo just makes sense.
“They brought these unique ideas together, and it turned out that just about everybody that walks through the door gets it,” Larson said. “It kind of makes sense.”
He finds the overlap between plant owners and record player owners to be more than coincidental. Pool 19 keeps “Mother Earth’s Plantasia,” a 1976 record whose music supposedly helps plants grow, in stock.
“There’s some sort of connection between music and plants. Sometimes (people) feel the music is an extension of their own personalities, and maybe the plants love it, too,” he said.
Even science agrees that talking to plants and playing music for them — they prefer heavy metal and classical music, according to one experiment — promotes their growth.
Who is listening to what?
Despite being one of the evergreen pop artists who have lived long enough to see the vinyl format come back into the limelight, Madonna's albums aren't top sellers for vinyl consumers today.
As older listeners return to the nostalgia of yesteryear, younger generations raised on Pandora, Spotify and Netflix have been brought into the fold, thanks to vinyl's promotion by Millennial and Generation Z pop stars. Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo and Lana Del Rey had the top selling albums on vinyl in 2023.
The crowd is as diverse as the music, record store owners say. While the Taylor Swifts of the world are drawing younger and younger listeners into record stores, the music tastes of 20- and 30-somethings aren’t one note.
“A 12-year-old will pull out a Supertramp record. They surprise me constantly,” Larson said. “They’ll be looking for Tyler the Creator or Olivia Rodrigo next to a 65-year-old looking for an original copy of ‘Back in Black’ by AC/DC or an old Kiss album he hasn’t been able to find.”
“We really like the memories that bring things like this back,” Mike Bray said as he looked at albums around the shop — Carole King’s “Tapestry,” Metallica’s “… And Justice for All,” Jerry Garcia, Simon Garfunkel, Miles Davis and plenty of jazz.
Albert Powers, owner of the Analog Vault in Cedar Rapids, has been surprised by consumer habits, too. He sees demand from younger adults for jazz, blues and soundtracks from movies or Broadway productions.
“I’m noticing they discover the music online and then come to buy the physical medium,” he said.
The newfound habits of younger listeners in particular, some of whom never grew up around physical media, fascinates some store owners. Larson himself, who previously worked for a large music studio in Los Angeles, was among the early adopters of the iPhone. Today, records generate just as much hype.
“The same buzz that people are getting for the (latest) iPhone, we’re getting that buzz for the new Jelly Roll or Weekend album,” he said.
Today, he’s glad he built a physical vinyl library. As advertisements and paywalls become more prevalent on streaming platforms, he predicts others will turn to their home libraries more, too.
“Streaming is a great way to expand your listening and learn about new artists, but I think there’s going to be a time soon where you’re going to have millions of people really upset they don’t have tangible ownership of their media,” Larson said.
He remains unsure of the long-term trends that hold the fate of record stores under their needles. But he’s sure house plants and records will be in demand for quite some time.
And if sales decline, stores like Pool 19 will remain valuable, he said, “as our own cool little haven.”
Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or elijah.decious@thegazette.com.
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