Bristol record shops celebrate record sales

As vinyl sales in the UK hit an 18 year high, we spoke with some of the city’s record sellers to find out how Bristol fares in the bigger picture.

According to the latest figures, more than a million records have been sold in the UK this year so far – the highest number since 1996 (Oasis era). And now the Official Chart Company is talking of launching a vinyl chart. Bristol is full of places to buy records – from the main players, such as Rise, Wanted and Head, to shops such as Plastic Wax and Idle Hands and regular record fairs taking place at Colston Hall. But why is this? Why in an age of iPods, iPhones and downloads are vinyl sales doing so well?

“It is a reaction against the disposability of digital consumption,” said Lawrence Montgomery, owner of Rise in the Triangle, which has seen a year-on-year rise in vinyl sales of between 30% and 60% since 2011. “Vinyl is something tangible that you own.  It is a piece of art and debatably the purest music format out there. I like to think a shop like ours can offer the customer a social experience and something that iTunes, Spotify et al can never…live in store performance, good coffee, nice books, knowledgable staff and a great selection of vinyl.”

John Stapleton of Wanted record shop in St Nic’s Market agrees. He said: “It’s a cliche, but I think it’s the tangibility of vinyl – records are pleasantly organic things, you can hold them, pass them round, lean on them, write on them, whatever. And it’s too easy to get overloaded with digital music – the way of listening to an LP is very different, it has a start and a finish, rather than an endless stream.”

Wanted launched in 2009 as a labour of love – they’re still going strong thanks in part to a new wave of record buyers. “We don’t sell anything apart from vinyl – and we’re still here after five years and busier all the time, so we’re pretty happy. We’ve always had different types of customers – hardcore collectors, DJs looking for unusual things to play, producers looking for samples, just regular people who’ve always liked records – but we’ve definitely seen more young people who’ve recently got into vinyl over the last couple of years.”

And even though there’s no shortage of record shops in Bristol, there’s still place for even more record selling antics. Roger Joffe has been running a record fair at the Colston Hall for the past four years, one which he previously ran with Rudi Staffieri at the The Folk House. He said the most recent event, which took place last month, was the best-attended yet. 

“The Colston Hall record fair is almost certainly the biggest free entry event of its kind in the UK,” he said. “Our event on December 6 was the best attended event we’ve held so far, with layers of buyers at each stall all morning.

He added: “I think vinyl is in a very healthy place at the moment. It will outlive the CD, a format many record collectors feel no more affection for than the cassette of old. It’s not something easy to explain to the download generation, though increasing numbers are discovering the pleasure of vinyl for themselves.”

Read our top picks of the best places to buy records in Bristol, here.

(Photos by Joe Pymar)