Summary
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HOST INTRO: Record stores have been around for over a century. Since the 80s, vinyl and compact disc sales have been growing steadily, but have boomed during the early 2000s, and once again during the pandemic. These shops are an icon of the retro era, and have been preserving music and memorabilia for decades. A record store in Queens is committed to keeping that tradition alive. Mehak Khan reports from Hifi Records in Astoria.
AMBI: “Machine Messiah” by Yes playing on speakers
TRACK: Hifi Records is a nostalgic records store located on 23-19 Steinway Street in the heart of Astoria. Its walls are covered in framed photographs of The Beatles, Lana del Ray, Bob Marley, and other monumental musicians, as well as shelves and shelves of vinyls. Matt, a regular customer, walks to the front counter with an armful of records.
ACT: Matt: So I got this Donovan record, just like UK psych rock--not too familiar with this one here, but I’m pretty excited to check it out. I also got this compilation record by the label Rhythm Driven called “Fiesta”. [laughs] I don’t know, this looks super fun, I’m really excited to check that one out.
AMBI: “Some Kind of Lover” by Jody Watley playing on speakers
TRACK: Hi-fi records opened in the Summer of 2015, the year when record stores sales grew an astounding 30% in the United States, according to Forbes Magazine. Tanya, 29, has been working at the shop since 2016, and tells me how as a Russian-Ukrainian immigrant raised in Massachusetts, she appreciates being surrounded by other small businesses, and feels at home with the sense of community in Astoria.
ACT: TANYA: Generally, I think there’s a lot of small businesses here that really want to make it, kind of have cohesiveness. There’s always small business weekends or our little crawls and everyone tries to support each other.
TRACK: Vinyl sales have been enjoying a recent comeback, growing exponentially in the past decade, and even more so during the pandemic. According to the Record Industry Association of America, vinyl record sales grew 29% in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, surpassing compact discs in sales revenue.
ACT: It was actually really good during Covid because a lot of people were staying home, they weren’t going out, and some people were getting unemployment checks so they were getting money they weren’t used to getting, so they started investing in their record collection.
TRACK: Along with cassette tapes,, CDs and sound equipment, the record store mainly sells vinyls starting at $23 from a wide variety of genres like jazz, pop punk, soul, heavy metal, swing, Latin American, and more. However, there has been a particular favorite of the public.
ACT: Fleetwood Mac “Rumors”, probably the number one best seller, even before the Tiktok, it was always up there.
TRACK: The TikTok Tanya is referring to is that of Nathan Apodaca’s 2020 viral skateboarding video, where Nathan was cruising down a highway on his skateboard drinking a carton of cranberry juice and lip syncing to Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams.”
AMBI: Audio of Nathan’s Tiktok
TRACK: Other fast-selling records have been those of Tom Petty, Amy Winehouse, The Beatles, and Adele.
ACT: Every time, every record that she’s had, when I started working here it was 25 and that was a huge hit, and now 30 has also been selling like hotcakes.
TRACK: Shops enthusiastically plan for ‘Record Store Day’, an event held twice a year to celebrate record store culture and get people to come into the brick and mortar record stores to buy exclusive releases that you can only get at the shop. As we were talking about the Gerard Way ‘Hesitant Alien’ vinyl featured on the store’s website, Tanya tells me about an interesting sale she made on the annual event.
ACT: TANYA: A couple years ago there was a Gerard Way [vinyl] that a couple people were really excited about. And I think it was two years in a row that we had the same little girl waiting first in line with her dad for the Gerard Way 7-inch. So, we were really excited that she got to have it.
TRACK: Hifi Records is committed to spreading the joy of music one vinyl at a time. While technology can allow us to play virtually any song in one tap, Hifi Records aims to keep the authenticity of physical media alive. For Multimedia Reporting, I am Mehak Khan in Astoria.