Cleveland, OH | Cleveland’s Music Saves quits the record store business: Music Saves, a Cleveland-based online record store, announced that it will be shutting down its vinyl record sales. “Music Saves is quitting the music business,” reads a statement on the store’s website, written by owner Melanie Hershberger. “The industry has changed in ways I could never have predicted 14 years ago. A lot of it feels really backwards. A lot of it has really worked against us. I feel like, as many other small businesses, small record stores are becoming less needed, as time goes on.” Originally, Music Saves operated out of a brick building just down the road from Cleveland music venue Beachland Ballroom. The store specialized in selling new releases on vinyl, and it earned local fame for its resident cats.
Glasgow, SCT | Glasgow record store to launch city’s newest radio station. With the capacity to run 24/7 and available worldwide, the aim for LP Radio is to have the station grounded in Glasgow but facing out to the rest of the world. A Glasgow record store is to launch the city’s new radio station from its base in the west end of the city. LP Records, on Park Road in the Kelvinbridge area, is launching LP Radio – a worldwide alternative online radio station. LP Radio will be centred around discovering and sharing new music alongside a focus on debate, patter, and community. Speaking to Glasgow Live, the man behind the station Lorenzo Pacitti said: “Plain and simply it’s a dream that I think I can make a reality, and much like the motivation to start a record shop I think it’s a dream that’s rooted in satiating a definite need and appetite here in Glasgow and beyond.”
Pittston, PA | Swap & Hops Pop-Up Record Fair to bring record, beer lovers together in Pittston: The overlap between beer nerds and record collectors is a significant one, at least if you believe what you read on the internet. And now, an event at a Pittston brewery this weekend seeks to combine the two hobbies. The first NEPA Swap & Hops Pop-Up Record Fair will be held at the Susquehanna Brewing Company at its main location, 635 S. Main St., Pittston. The event will run noon to 6 p.m. this Sunday, Dec. 9. The fair is being held in conjunction with the Gallery of Sound. According to a press release from the record store, approximately 5,000 items from the company’s inventory will be available at the fair before they’re sold in-store, giving serious collectors a unique opportunity to see items before anyone else. But Gallery of Sound won’t be the only ones there with records…
The Big Lebowski soundtrack released as limited 20th anniversary vinyl edition: That record really tied the room together. Mondo has announced that a 20th anniversary edition of The Big Lebowski soundtrack will be released on limited “white russian” coloured vinyl, this December. The Big Lebowski’s 15 song soundtrack features music by Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, Nina Simone and Moondog. Directed by the Coen Brothers, the cult movie stars Jeff Bridges as The Dude, who gets mistaken for a millionaire of the same name, known as The Big Lebowski. Its all-star cast is rounded out by John Goodman, Julian Moore, Steve Buscemi, Philip Seymour Hoffman and John Turturro as the fiesty, purple-velvet-jumpsuit-wearing, bowling pro Jesus Quintana. The 20th anniversary edition features new artwork by Paul Mann, available on coffee and cream coloured LP as well as a standard black variant.
Music streaming is fueling vinyl’s resurgence. They’re not competitors but complementary formats that deliver different benefits to fans. Streaming has been blamed for killing off the CD, but industry experts agree it’s helping bolster the growth and quality of another physical music format: vinyl. Since 2015, streaming income has eclipsed CD sales, and the likes of Apple Music and Spotify have become major players in the music industry. This year the Recording Industry Association of America reported that 75 percent of music revenue in the United States came from streaming services. In the past three years, vinyl sales in the US have steadily risen about $2 million annually. On paper, it doesn’t make sense. Why would anyone buy an album they can only listen to in one specific environment, when for half the price of a new record, they can put it and millions of others in their pocket and listen anywhere?
