> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://volta.ghost-themes.apps.codememory.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Rewiring the record store - URL: https://volta.ghost-themes.apps.codememory.com/rewiring-the-record-store/ - Published: 2026-08-28T23:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-28T23:00:00.000Z - Description: Vinyl was written off twice. Now teenagers are the fastest-growing group of buyers, and the shops that survived look nothing like the old ones. - Author: Nia Brooks - Tags: Music, #Import 2026-09-30 03:35 In 2008, a record shop owner in the north of England told a newspaper that he expected to be the last person in his family to sell music. His son had just started university to study accounting. The shop, he said, would close within five years. The shop is still open. His son runs it now, and it has never been busier. ![The shop floor on a Saturday. Vinyl sales have grown for seventeen years in a row.](https://volta.ghost-themes.apps.codememory.com/content/images/2026/09/records-shop-1.jpg) The shop floor on a Saturday. Vinyl sales have grown for seventeen years in a row. ## The comeback nobody predicted Vinyl records were written off in the early 1990s, when compact discs took over. By the late 2000s, even CDs were collapsing, replaced first by downloads and then by streaming. Record shops closed by the thousand. Then something strange happened. Vinyl sales started to rise, slowly at first, then faster. Today more vinyl albums are sold each year than at any time since the late 1980s. In some countries, records outsell CDs. ## Why people buy records Ask customers why they buy vinyl and very few mention sound quality. What they talk about is ownership, ritual and attention. "On my phone I have every song ever made, and I listen to none of them properly," says Hana, 23, flicking through a rack of jazz reissues. "When I buy a record, I sit down and listen to the whole thing. Both sides. It is the only time I do that." > Streaming is a library. A record is a relationship. > > **Sam Okafor, shop owner** ![Listening posts let customers hear a record before they buy it.](https://volta.ghost-themes.apps.codememory.com/content/images/2026/09/records-listening-1.jpg) Listening posts let customers hear a record before they buy it. ## The new record shop The shops that survived did not do it by standing still. Sam Okafor's shop, the one his father expected to close, now works as a cafe, a venue and a community space as much as a retailer. On weekday mornings the front room serves coffee. In the evenings it hosts listening sessions, where an album is played start to finish with the lights down and phones away. On Saturdays local bands play in-store sets on a stage made from pallets. There is a noticeboard for musicians looking for bandmates, and a box of free records for children. ![](https://volta.ghost-themes.apps.codememory.com/content/images/2026/09/records-bins-1.jpg) ![](https://volta.ghost-themes.apps.codememory.com/content/images/2026/09/records-turntable-1.jpg) ![](https://volta.ghost-themes.apps.codememory.com/content/images/2026/09/records-listening-1.jpg) The bins, the house turntable and a listening session in progress. ## Technology as a tool, not a rival Okafor does not see streaming as the enemy. Many of his customers discover music online and then come to the shop to buy the records they love. He runs a small online store and a newsletter with 6,000 subscribers, which he describes as "the most valuable thing the shop owns". 📬 The newsletter is simple: five new records a week, a short paragraph about each and a link to reserve a copy. Most sell out before the shop opens. ## The problems of success The vinyl boom has created its own difficulties. Pressing plants are overwhelmed, and small labels can wait months for their records to be made. Prices have risen sharply, with some new albums costing more than a meal out. And the demand for limited-edition coloured pressings has turned some releases into collectables that never get played. Okafor is wary of the collector market. "I want people to play these things, scratch them, love them. A record that sits in its shrink wrap is not music. It is an investment." ## A Saturday behind the counter I spent a Saturday working in Okafor's shop to see how it runs. The doors open at ten, and there are already six people waiting outside, all hoping for one of the twenty copies of a new album by a local band. By half past ten, the copies are gone. Most of the day is conversation. A father asks for something to play his daughter that is "like the stuff I liked, but not embarrassing". A student wants to know where to start with Brazilian music. A man in his seventies brings in a box of records from his late brother's loft, and Okafor spends forty minutes going through them with him, handling each one as if it were fragile, which it is. "Selling is the smallest part of the job," Okafor tells me as the man leaves, with a fair price and a cup of tea. "Mostly I am a librarian, a counsellor and a DJ." ![Second-hand stock is sorted by genre and then by the owner's mood.](https://volta.ghost-themes.apps.codememory.com/content/images/2026/09/records-bins-1.jpg) Second-hand stock is sorted by genre and then by the owner's mood. ## How to start a collection For new collectors, Okafor has three rules. Buy records you will actually play. Start with second-hand copies, which are often cheaper and sometimes sound better than new pressings. And get a decent turntable, not the cheapest one available, because a bad stylus can damage your records. - A good entry-level turntable costs around the same as a pair of good headphones. - Clean your records with a carbon-fibre brush before each play. - Store them upright, never stacked flat. - Ask your local shop for recommendations. That is what they are there for. ## The future of the shop What keeps him optimistic is the age of his customers. The fastest-growing group, he says, is teenagers. They come in with their parents, then with their friends, then on their own. "They grew up with everything free and instant," he says. "Now they want something that takes a bit of effort. They want to hold it. They want to own it. That is good news for me, but I think it is good news for music too." ![A record needs to be turned over after twenty minutes. That is part of the point.](https://volta.ghost-themes.apps.codememory.com/content/images/2026/09/records-turntable-1.jpg) A record needs to be turned over after twenty minutes. That is part of the point.