King Vinyl: Record Stores in Virginia

With more new vinyl being manufactured—and available in chain outlets Barnes & Noble, Urban Outfitters and others—sales of record albums keep climbing. Nielsen Soundscan reports that 2017 marked the 12th straight year of growth for the once-abandoned LP format.

“People like the ritual of putting on an album, looking at the cover, the aroma of it,” says Ian Little, co-owner of Roanoke's Vintage Vault. “Vinyl just has more personality to it. The gatefold covers, the inserts, they are sort of like art objects.”

Virginia Living Magazine has posted my October music column about the resurgence of vinyl and the growing number of independent record retailers. There are nearly three dozen brick-and-mortar album outlets currently making noise across Virginia, including longtime fixtures like Richmond's Plan 9 and Birdland in Virginia Beach,. but also newer spots like Vintage Vault, Richmond's Steady Sounds, and Sound Idea, which is located on the Eastern Shore.  In Virginia, it seems, albums never went away and are as hot as ever.

To read "King Vinyl," go here.

Do you want to take an Old Dominion Record Store Tour? Here's a list of selected vinyl shops across Virginia. 

(Photo of Steady Sounds Records by the mighty Markus Schmidt)