The world’s best record shops #104: Crevette Records, Brussels: Nestled in the bustling, vibrant neighbourhood of Marollen in Brussels lies Crevette Records, a shop and label home to dance music’s many incarnations. “We sell good music that we ‘feel’ ourselves,” says its owner Pim Thomas, aka Alfred Anders. Opened in September 2016, Crevette has thrived as a hub for everything from house and techno cuts to disco and Afro, fuelling the city’s alternative underground sound. “Thanks to the wide variety of musical genres in the shop, people who would never cross paths are becoming really close friends.” And if you can’t find what you’re after, don’t fret, it’s probably in the back. “We have around 20,000 second hand records in our warehouse that we still need to go through and add to the crates,” admits Thomas.
Regular-Ass Physical Sales Got Jack White to the Top of the Billboard 200. Jack “The Vinyl Lover”™ White sold 121,000 CD and vinyl copies of ‘Boarding House Reach,’ breaking streaming’s hold on the chart. In news that won’t be particularly surprising, White achieved his number one position on the Billboard 200 mostly via physical sales. He sold 121,000 copies of Boarding House Reach (27,000 of which were, of course, vinyl sales), and some of which came from a concert ticket bundle. His streaming numbers were comparatively low, as the New York Times points out: just 4.2 million song streams. It sounds like a lot, but in context it’s peanuts—last week’s number one album, XXXTentation’s ?, received 159 million streams, though sold just 20,000 physical copies.
Rare New Zealand Punk Rock vinyl sells for nearly US$800, a record price for the country. Searches and sales for vinyl in New Zealand are up nearly 70 per cent in the last five years: A rare, New Zealand-pressed vinyl record released in 1978 has sold on Trade Me for more than NZ$1000 (US$725)- smashing an all-time record. The Suburban Reptiles’ Saturday Night Stay at Home 45rpm received nine bids on the New Zealand auction site on Sunday and sold for NZ$1180 (US$855). The Trade Me listing described the product as a “very rare original NZ pressing 6036 924, released in 1978” and that a student radio survey had rated the record as “the best NZ single of all time” in 2000. New Zealand punk band the Suburban Reptiles never released an album, making the record “one of only a couple of recordings they released”, they were one of the first two punk bands to form in New Zealand.
Digital vs. analog: why vinyl is starting to make a comeback: Reports last week from the USA confirming that physical media is now outselling downloads once again. …The psychology of ownership is something that has long fascinated academics. A 1981 book, The Meaning Of Things, makes a case for how the objects we own “reflect and help create the ultimate goals of one’s existence”, and how they effectively become an extension of ourselves. As the digitisation of culture has taken a number of those objects out of our hands, it would follow that our relationship with them would also change. Author and psychologist Christian Jarrett suggests that this may be a reason why digital piracy of music once ran so rampant. “Because people generally place a lower value on digital products,” he wrote last year, “it follows that many of us consider the theft of digital products as less serious than physical theft.”
John Fogerty reissuing hit 1985 album “Centerfield” on CD and vinyl in April: John Fogerty’s chart-topping 1985 solo album, Centerfield, will be reissued on vinyl and CD on April 6. The CD will include two bonus tracks, “My Toot Toot” and “I Confess,” while the vinyl edition will come with a download card offering access to digital versions of the tunes. Centerfield marked a comeback for Fogerty, who had taken a nine-year hiatus from recording while he was embroiled in a legal battle with his ex-Creedence Clearwater Revival bandmates and the group’s label. The album is the singer/guitarist’s most successful solo effort, having sold more than 2 million copies in the U.S. The record features two of Fogerty’s biggest post-CCR hits — “The Old Man Down the Road” and “Rock and Roll Girls” — as well as the title track, which has become a modern-day baseball anthem. Not including the bonus tracks, Fogerty played all the instruments on Centerfield.
City reviewing proposal for hotel at old Tower Records location: A new hotel could be occupying a prime spot in Brea Downtown, where there has not been a permanent business in more than a decade. An application has been submitted to the city for construction of a five-story, 116 room, Hampton Inn at the southeast corner of Brea Boulevard and Birch Street. The applicant Vista Investments, plans to knock down the shuttered Tower Records building, which has had only season businesses since the music store chain filed for bankruptcy in 2007. The project would also include about 4,500 square feet of commercial space on the ground floor for other another restaurant or business.
