My thoughts about the resurgence of vinyl (from a Filipino's point of view)

Why do I think there is a resurgence of vinyl?

In my opinion, there are a confluence of different things.

First and foremost, this can be attributed to independent record store retailers in the United States who held on to vinyl and began Record Store Day – an off-shoot of Free Comic Book Day. That turned things around and showed there was a scene.

Second, it is the vinyl records in popular culture. Films, to be specific.

You will find that some of the best films in the last 30 years featured vinyl prominently. The Shawshank Redemption in 1994, High Fidelity and Almost Famous in 2000 to name a select few.

Guardians of the Galaxy, laterally for cassettes, also featured classic rock music.

And speaking of pop culture, the recent infatuation with the 1980s has seen series such as Stranger Things, Everybody Hates Chris, The Americans, and Deutschland 83 once more to name a few take ahold of people’s senses. And when you speak of the 80s, music and vinyl is a huge part.

When you also have famous people like Jack Nicholson, Jack White, Christina Aguilera, Elijah Wood, and Bill Clinton to name a few who publicly share their love for the medium, that will influence people.

The desire for something tangible in this digital world has opened up people to old things. Vinyl is one of them. And back in the day, we never called it vinyl. We simply called them “records”. It was understood that you meant vinyl.

Personally, I collected records since I was five years old and stopped around 1990 when I was done with college. I shifted to compact discs but got the odd record once in a while. It wasn’t until January 2017 that I returned full time when an old flame’s attempts to get me back into vinyl finally worked. I have loved and been into music since I was five years old. My father was a record company executive who at one point in his career, licensed and distributed records by Kiss, Donna Summer, Teri De Sario, the Village People, KC and the Sunshine Band, among others locally. I also joined the industry as a label manager and I “discovered” Parokya ni Edgar and Datu’s Tribe for Universal Records.

Locally, Filipinos took their cue – as always to what happens abroad.

How would you describe your regular customers of these independent record stores? Are they mostly older or younger?

In my estimation, there are about four dozen independent sellers in Metro Manila alone. Each one caters to specific age groups.

For NEC, since 99% of the records it sells are second hand records from the US and usually from an older set of collectors who are letting go of their collections due to age, financial concerns, and what not. So these are records from the 1960s to the late 1980s. Most of the clientele of NEC are older but there are some younger ones.

Some of them are picking up records they used to have, some to fill up holes in their collection, and some are just getting into it more because they now have the purchase power. The people who go here are regular and hardcore collectors. They pass by at least once a week and spend hours inside just digging.

When I say fill holes in their collections, for one, imported records were very expensive back in the 1980s.

When I started buying records, locally pressed ones cost P21-25 pesos. Double albums fetched for P44-45; sometimes P50. There were three shops in Manila that sold imports at princely sums – Sam’s that was located along Pasay Road (now called Arnaiz Road), Odyssey in Greenhills and Chrishareth in Greenhills. You could also go to Dau and Olongapo to buy outside the US bases as American servicemen also disposed of their records and cassettes for cash.

I remember New Order’s first single of “Ceremony” selling for P120 at Odyssey. It took me two months to save for that so I could buy it. Chrishareth was mostly a comic book store but the owner was into rock music and sold records to earn extra. He had imports of U2 that sold well because the Irish band’s records weren’t immediately available locally.

And no, I am not surprised if someone enters the store due to records. They wouldn’t go there if it weren’t for the records.

By the same token, stores like Satchmi appeal to younger crowds as they mostly sell new pressings or re-issues.

I’ll say this though, there aren’t many people of my generation (Generation X) who listen to modern indie/alternative/underground artists unless they hit it big). There are few. Very few.