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Riding the vinyl groove: 13 must-visit record stores in Metro Vancouver

By January 29, 2025General

Vancouver’s vinyl record stores are keeping physical music products viable in the digital streaming era. Here’s our list of must-visit stores. Worldwide, vinyl dominates today’s physical music purchases.

Vinyl record sales rose in 2024, according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), with a reported 43.2 million EPs/LPs sold in the U.S. The increase continues a worldwide revival of the pre-digital technology that first surfaced after 2006, when the U.S. market reported an all-time low of less than a million units. It’s an upward trend that the Lower Mainland’s network of indie retailers play a key role in driving.

At the aptly named Vinyl Records (44 Water St.) in Gastown, owner David Love Jones said there are obvious reasons why a technology from the analog 1940s keeps spinning along — and gaining new coverts while predicting CDs won’t ever make a similar return.

“When a CD gets scratched, you can’t really remedy it, whereas with vinyl, you can drop it on the floor and quite likely not even hear the scratches,” he said. “So, it’s a much more resilient product. The art is 10 times larger with gatefolds and inner sleeves designs to connect with as well. Vinyl is much nicer for the warm sound and even a few pops and ticks is something people are quite accepting of given the overall resiliency.”

But the increase in vinyl sales is a far cry from the glory days of the 1970s, when an excess of 300 million EPs/LPs would shift in a single year. Total sales across Canada last year were up 26.6 per cent from 2023, with 1,781,021 sales reported by veteran industry expert Alan Cross’s A Journal of Musical Things.

CD sales dropped another 12 per cent over the same period.

That isn’t to say that local retailers aren’t still selling them. At Commercial Drive institution Highlife Records, owner Kevin Finseth says all formats have continued selling during the shop’s 42-year history. CDs still have a place in the product line.

“We wouldn’t be surviving on CDs alone, but I think there is room for them, vinyl and even cassettes,” he said. “The market is always changing.”

Hot titles at Highlife these days include vintage Bob Dylanreleases, reflecting a renewed interest in the Boomer generation wordsmith’s cinematic treatment in the Timothee Chalamet film A Complete Unknown. Responding to these kind of instant demand cycles is a huge challenge to local retailers, as vinyl catalogue availability varies a lot.

Even with a standard sticker price of $50 for a new album, the music industry hasn’t placed high priority on making titles by classic rockers like Dylan, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin or Bob Marley ready for retail. If anything, it’s an ‘order-and-hope’ process.

“Many key artists from all decades have catalogues that aren’t readily available, with obvious titles being so hard to stock,” said Grant McDonagh, owner of Zulu Records in Kitsilano. “After clearing out their backlogs during COVID at full price, the record companies don’t seem interested in warehousing or making key titles available. Companies aren’t motivated to make records or CDs when they are making more on streaming.

“We saw this happen to vinyl when CDs came in too and it’s very frustrating.”

While chasing the highest profit margins is going to be the goal of any business, another issue plaguing vinyl availability is the limited number of record plants producing product.

Aside from a major production centre in Prague, most record-pressing is done by smaller indie plants. Most of these sprang up at the beginning of the vinyl revival, working with vinyl-oriented indie labels such as Merge, which has put out vinyl records by indie acts such as Vancouver’s Destroyer or Ontario’s electronic act Caribou.

Small pressings for local artists was often the reason behind these plants opening at all. Doing runs of Dylan albums was never part of the plan.

Musician Jack White, whose Third Man Records label operates a pressing plant in Nashville, posted a public plea in 2023 to the three major record labels — Warner Brothers, Universal and Sony — to step up and invest in expanded pressing facilities. The present demand for product outstrips the capacity of the accumulated smaller boutique plants that have sprung up across North America.

White says it’s time to accept that “the issue is, simply, we have all created an environment where the unprecedented demand for vinyl records cannot keep up with the rudimentary supply of them.”

Vancouver’s Clampdown Pressing is a perfect example of a small plant working hard to get products to market for musicians.

The company’s website notes an estimated turn time of three months in bright red print above its name. Owner Billy Bones says the market is changing as the major labels have added some pressing capacity.

Dave Gowans, owner of Main Street’s Red Cat Records (4386 Main St.), has watched the switch from trading in used vinyl to new vinyl being the most substantial portion of his sales. Noting the trend has seen mainstream retailers such as London Drugs stocking titles by acts from The Beatles to King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, he still is reminded of the stark discrepancies between total record sales and streaming.

“The units sold for a bestselling vinyl record is never going to be like the 1980s and selling 14 million copies of Thriller,” he said. “Today, anyone, save Taylor Swift, who sold nearly four million albums, getting sales over 10,000 total copies is incredibly rare. So, while it may be in the public eye, it’s still pretty fringe for the market overall but one that does well for us. We also sell turntables to play records on.”

So what’s the next archival music delivery system set to stage a resurgence? All of the retailers we interviewed agreed that cassettes are making a comeback.

So much so that Red Cat Records actually stocks a portable player from Europe called We Are Rewind. For around $200, you can play your favourite tapes on the unit and put it through your earbuds or a Bluetooth speaker hook up. While this merging of old and new-ish technologies may seem gimmicky, outlets such as Bloomberg notes it’s gaining popularity among Gen-Z listeners.

13 record stores to check out in the Lower Mainland

The world may be operating online, but there are still plenty of local record stores supplying music fans with their favourite music in B.C. Many of these stores also host frequent live sessions, in-store meet and greet events, and more. Consult the website for calendar listings.

Here’s a list of record stores where you can head to find old, new and surprising sounds:

Audiopile

Specializing in hard-to-find releases with a vinyl focus.

2016 Commercial Dr., Vancouver | Audipile.ca

Hours: Open everyday, 11 a.m.-7 p.m.

Buy/sell/trade: Vinyl

Beat Street Records

Hip-hop and DJ platters as well as phono accessories and gear and graffiti art supplies.

439 W. Hastings, Vancouver | beatstreet.ca

Hours: Sun./Mon./Tues., 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Wed./Thurs., 10 a.m.-7 p.m.; Fri./Sat., 10 a.m.-8 p.m.

Buy/sell/trade: Vinyl, cassettes, CDs, collector’s memorabilia

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Chilliwax Records

Opened in 2023 selling new and used vinyl, audio equipment and more.

45895 Wellington Ave., Chilliwack | chilliwax.ca

Hours: Sun., 11 a.m.-3 p.m.; Mon., noon-5 p.m.; Tues.-Sat., 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Buy/sell/trade: vinyl

Dandelion Records & Emporium

Psychedelic, esoteric post punk, disco and more.

180-288 E. Georgia St., Vancouver | dandelionrecords.ca

Hours: Thurs.-Sun., noon-5 p.m.

Buy/sell/trade: Contact store

 

Highlife Records

Particularly strong selection of world sounds as well as contemporary indie rock and more.

1317 Commercial Dr., Vancouver | highlifeworld.com

Hours: Tues.-Sun., noon-6 p.m.

Buy/sell/trade: All formats