Mainstream retailers giving vinyl LP another spin

Nearly killed off a decade ago by compact discs and digital music downloads, the mighty vinyl record is fighting its way back onto turntables across America.

Toe-tappers snapped up nearly 1 million records last year, a 15 percent increase and the highest level in three years, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Though the LP never lost its luster to many audiophiles and the handful of independent music stores that kept healthy numbers of them in stock, mainstream retailers now are getting into the act.

The most recent is Richfield, Minn.-based Best Buy Co. Inc., which is launching a pilot project at an undisclosed number of stores.

"We've got an executive here who's basically responding to his own children and is sponsoring a test to see if there's a market," said Best Buy CEO Brad Anderson, 59, with a big belly laugh, adding, "As an old vinyl collector, this is close to my heart."

Best Buy, the nation's largest consumer electronics retailer, is predictably tight-lipped about the test, to avoid artificially tipping the scales.

But even if the retailer ends up rolling out record sales nationwide, as competitor Circuit City Stores Inc. did years ago, no one expects vinyl to drive Best Buy's earnings.

For veteran album collectors such as Scott Johnson, who recently picked up a fresh stack at Arc's Valu Village Thrift Store in Richfield, the long-playing record's rise from throwback to comeback is a welcome sign.

"Music sounds great on vinyl if you get a nice, decent copy," said Johnson, of Prior Lake, Minn. "You get a warm sound. You get the liner notes, cool artwork. ... It's more fun."

Records nonetheless remain a drop in the musical bucket, last year pulling in just 0.2 percent of total sales. CD sales, which have dropped precipitously in recent years as consumers have turned to digital downloads to stock their MP3 players, still make up 90 percent of the market. And the music industry likes vinyl because it can't be downloaded illegally -- something nearly six in 10 consumers did last year.

But now that younger music lovers have discovered that the iPod and the turntable can peacefully coexist, retailers are taking note.

Amazon created a special section last fall just for record-lovers, even though it has been selling records online for more than a dozen years.

At Half Price Books, second-hand sales of vinyl have increased every year since 2005, when sales shot up 11 percent nationally, spokeswoman Kirk Thompson said.

"Rap is somewhat responsible for keeping vinyl records around, because the DJs use vinyl," said Auralee Likes, who co-owns Minneapolis' Hymie's Vintage Records with Julie Wellman.

"The younger crowd hears the sample from the old records in the hip-hop, and then come in here and find out that this little sound is actually a whole album," she said. "It's like a library, you can learn so much."

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)