When The Sextones go on tour, they make sure they have plenty of their pressed vinyl records to sell. “Our biggest seller is vinyl at our merch tables,” said Mark Sexton, front man for the Reno-based soul band. “This last tour we did in Southern California, we sold out of every record we had on hand, which was super wild.” They’ve been putting their music on records since 2013.
They don’t just sell records, they’re also avid collectors. “Every time we’re on tour, everyone collects vinyl. My biggest tax write-off this year was vinyl records,” Sexton said, referring to his DJ business, where he spins vinyl at events.
Vinyl records, also known as wax in reference to the material used in the first commercial sound recordings, are making a comeback, and not just for The Sextones. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, vinyl LPs now outsell CDs. The RIAA also reports that record sales experienced a significant resurgence in the first half of 2021, with revenues growing 94%. That’s the same year Rock Cellar Records opened below Word After Word Bookstore in downtown Truckee.
Bookstore owner Andie Keith saw an opportunity in the downstairs space after her son, Jack, conducted a feasibility study on opening a local record store as part of a project he was working on while he was a student at Truckee High School. A record store seemed viable, so the Word After Word team, Jack, and his father, Scott, got to work to build out the store that sells new and used vinyl records. It’s become a popular spot for millennials and boomers alike.
“You see the millennial generation, who finally has more money to spend, starting to build their collections for the first time,” said Kevin Wood, the record store manager. “And then you have the older age groups buying albums that they bought way back in the day,” he added, referring to re-pressed albums from bands like Led Zeppelin and The Beatles. Popular bands from the 1990s and early 2000s are making a comeback as well, and his top sellers are anything by Taylor Swift and Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours album, which was originally released in 1977.
Where is all the interest in vinyl coming from? One theory lies in the tangibility of a record and the intention that goes into listening to an album, something that is lost in the digital listening world. “I think people value being able to physically touch something, flip it over, read who played on it, who produced it, where it was recorded, and be able to physically see the artwork that is part of the band’s branding,” Sexton said.
Wood agreed. “A lot of it is the physical connection to the music with the record … we want things that are real.”
Tangibility is exactly what you get when you listen to a record — the grooves carved into it mirror the sound’s waveform, and you can actually see the music. “If you zoom in on a microscopic picture of a needle in a groove, it looks like it’s in the Grand Canyon, and the left side of the wall represents the left speaker, and the right wall represents the right speaker,” Sexton said.
And then there’s the level of intentionality that goes into listening to music via vinyl. The album is physically laid on the turntable, flipped over, and often listened to from beginning to end.
Some audiophiles, like Steve Morris, a Truckee artist and entrepreneur, insist that music from vinyl sounds better than digital. He handcrafts nostalgic mid-century modern stereo consoles at Streamline HiFi. “I think what’s driving this resurgence of vinyl is that it offers a full frequency range of sound, and that’s why it sounds so rich and warm. And then you pair it with a tube amplifier, and in my opinion, there’s nothing better,” he said.
The tube amplifier, a component he custom makes for his consoles, is key to hearing that rich sound. A 2022 study published in Frontiers of Psychology, titled Vinyl as Fine Wine: The Role of Expectation on the Perception of Music Format, made the case that most listeners don’t listen to music on high-end equipment, like quality tube amplifiers, finding that one reason vinyl is becoming more popular is the expectation that it sounds better. A record’s sound may not actually be better unless it’s being played through a high-end tube amplifier, like the ones Morris makes for his consoles.
Whether vinyl is just a fad or has real staying power is yet to be determined. “I will always play records, but part of me wonders if they are just trendy right now, and if they’re going to get lost in the next 20 years, and people are going to get really into cassettes or something,” Sexton said.
Wood believes records are here for a while. “I don’t see it disappearing. It seems like the digital and analog audiences are different,” he said, noting that many of his customers purchase records as a hobby, browsing the store for new presses of old classics and looking for unique albums to add to their collection.
While musicians such as Taylor Swift have helped push vinyl sales forward, getting the youngest generation on board might prove challenging. Hayden Connolly, a Truckee local who is 8 years old and the author’s daughter, has a record player at home and several records, including Taylor Swift’s. When asked if she prefers listening to music on vinyl or digitally, she said, “To buy a record, it costs like $59 or something every time! And I can listen to more music on a phone.”
