In 2022, UK sales of vinyl went up 11% to £151 million, and an estimated 5.8 million vinyl LPs were sold. That’s a lot of vinyl. Despite living in an age where Spotify dominates the market, and most of us listen to music on our phones, the Digital Entertainment and Retail Association (ERA) reported that vinyl is driving the value of the physical music business, it’s helping keep this part of the music industry alive.
But why vinyl? What’s behind the growth of this vintage physical format, which year on year keeps on growing?
I went to a record shop in York to find out… and also just to look through some records.
Pitch 22 lives on Fishergate (otherwise known as that busy road by Spoons), and sells second hand vinyls, CDs, books, and art. Here I met John, the owner who has run this shop for 6 years.
Before setting up in York, John lived in Stockport and originally sold books. Then he bought some vinyl titles and they started to sell well. At this point, John’s customers were mainly die-hard fans, record-enthusiasts who had always loved buying them.
Now, in York, things have changed quite a bit.
Inside the shop, it’s a remarkably tiny space, but made all the more cosy by the masses of records stacked in boxes right in front of you, and the music playing as you come in to flick through and browse. The shop has a wide range of genres, including reggae, punk, electronic, hip hop, folk, and classical.
“I get a good variety of customers”, he tells me, including a fair few young people.
Thanks to York now being one of the most visited cities outside of London , Pitch 22 welcomes people from all over the world too. He told me this is one of his favourite parts of the job – getting to talk to people from different places, discuss music tastes, bands, artists, and the love of all things vinyl.
Last year, courtesy of Indie York (of which Pitch is proudly a member), John got to set up shop at the Christmas market, which did him some great business. Although, he tells me, most of the records people bought were pretty limited in variety.
I spot a Fleetwood Mac album on the 1970s section of the table in front of me. That stuff all sells well at Pitch 22 – think The Smiths, The Cure, and Joy Division. I flick through and see a Bowie album, and Pink Floyd’s Animals. “Rock is always popular, and they say rock is dead!”
“But there are some other more obscure ones as well,” John says. He likes to include things that are a bit different. While John’s not a massive fan of death metal, and some obscure jazz may not be his thing, there’s no guarantee he won’t have some of it stashed away somewhere in the shop for the ultra-fans to find. “Most of those go online though,” he says.
For record shops like John’s, the great thing about selling online is that it allows ultra-obscure albums and artists to be found and matched by their ultra-obscure listeners. The internet provides access to people from all over the world so that they can buy that one last album to finish their collection.
Although Pitch 22 sells its more unusual records online, the majority of sales still happen on the shop floor, and at the record fairs John organises. A few months back, John organised a record fair at York Racecourse, which attracted a good crowd.
Shop footfall can be a bit unpredictable, John tells me; at Christmas time he was remarkably quiet, but as soon as the new year rolled around, things got really busy.
During Covid, of course, things were pretty different. The government helped out a fair bit, as it did with a large number of local businesses, and John managed to get some much-needed time off. Saying that though, there were some customers who still kept coming. One guy apparently used to post requests through the shop letterbox, so John could go and deliver them through the guy’s letterbox to help him get his fix!
When I ask about the other record shops in York (the “competition”), he laughs and tells me the locations of all of them, and seems to know them quite well. I guess in second-hand record-shop circles, there’s a good deal of comradery.
“…there’s nothing like an old record – something in the mystery of it, and the experience of going to a shop like Pitch 22 to find one.”
The problem, John indicates, is that there are companies hijacking vinyl’s moment, by making copious amounts of brand new vinyl’s (of old greatest hits), in order to cash in. This isn’t so great for second-hand sellers like John, who rely on the older classics to draw customers in through the door.
Then again, there’s nothing like an old record – something in the mystery of it, and the experience of going to a shop like Pitch 22 to find one. The experience is the main selling point, and perhaps the reason why vinyl still sells today, and John is doing as well as he is. For the first time, John has hired an employee, another avid record collector, to help him out and get him some time off.
As we finish our chat, the clock turns 12 and the shop is now open. As soon as the doors open a customer walks straight in. When I eventually leave after buying a few bits, I pass some young people by the traffic lights who soon follow suit, opening the door to Pitch 22.
Pitch 22 is open 12-6pm everyday (except Sundays). Keep an eye on their Facebook page for news of record sales and more events.
Big thanks to John for accommodating me for this article… and for posing for the photo.
