Along the red shelves at Zia Records are a bounty of CDs, DVDs and, of course, records, sheathed in plastic and tagged with price stickers. The store, which has two locations in Las Vegas, sells the music industry’s most popular physical format, purchases of which have boomed during the pandemic.
The process of pressing vinyl—with approximately 23 minutes of music per 12-inch record—remains the same as it was decades ago. What has changed dramatically in recent months, however, is the time it takes stores like Zia to receive new records, or fresh copies of old ones, and get them out where customers can buy them.
“It’s more difficult to expect to have everything available all the time,” says Mike Durham, media buyer for Zia. “It never really was [easy], but there’s been more issues with that [lately].”
A shortage of vinyl pressing plants and key materials, along with recent supply chain and labor issues, have dragged the process down at a time when demand has skyrocketed.
Dave Cleland, who travels around the country looking for vinyl records for his Denver-based record store, Invincible Vinyl, browses through the selection of used records at Record City.
These days, Durham says, vinyl on order can take a year or more to arrive, whereas in the past, he anticipated 90-day to six-month turnarounds. Customers can expect major artists, like Billie Eilish and Adele, to have their records out in time, Durham explains, but smaller musicians and labels are bearing the brunt of the current delays.
Vinyl record sales grew 94%—to $467 million—during the first half of 2021, according to a midyear report by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), accounting for more than two-thirds of physical-format music revenues. But for longtime collectors like Durham, who has worked at Zia for 12 years, vinyl is far from novel.
“What we saw, about 10 years ago, is people, especially young people, finding new ways to appreciate the format and being able to hold something tangible in their hands, as opposed to downloads or streaming,” he says. “People want to be able to support the artists they love and have that experience.”
Shahab Zargari, co-owner of the Las Vegas-based label Geykido Comet Records, says larger imprints get priority over smaller ones like GC when it comes to pressing. Considering the level of distribution for a label like Universal Music Group—featuring a roster of artists that includes Taylor Swift, whose 2020 album Evermore broke vinyl album sales records this past summer—it makes sense, Zargari says, but it still stings.
“The big guys can really do whatever they want,” Zagari says. “It still hurts all the same. Those 500 [records] we’re doing, that means a lot to us.”
Ma Nerriza Dela Cerna, a project manager of Erika Records, a record manufacturer in Buena Park, Califonia, says the plant works with a mix of indie and major record labels. Nevada isn’t home to any record manufacturing plants, where vinyl is cut and pressed.
Dela Cerna says the process of creating vinyl cannot be sped up, even with fresh machines, so the most direct solution is to attempt to accommodate increased demand. Erika Records now has 40 machines on hand, a huge uptick from the six or eight machines it had in 2009, she says.
“We tried to get ahead of it, but now we’re just adapting and reacting to the realities,” Dela Cerna says. “And we’re not the only ones dealing with it.”
Prices—of both new and used records—have also increased during the current boom.
Alaina Derkas, assistant manager at Zia’s Eastern location, recalls a customer who brought in a copy of Frank Ocean’s 2016 album, Blond, to sell. Zia uses Discogs, a user-driven online music marketplace and database, to gauge the value of used vinyl, and Derkas’ Discogs search for Blond placed its value at $600.
She convinced the customer to hold onto the rare record, since Zia typically pays out a third of the price for which it will sell a record.
“That one really blew my mind because I was never going to see that ever in my life,” Derkas says. “It’s up to the person if they do want to give it up.”
Customers who come to the store to sell vinyl tend to be older, Derkas says, while teenagers usually browse the new vinyl stacks.
“I like retail,” she says. “You can make people happy with soaps and shampoos and stuff, but here, it gets so personal for people. And I get to go home each day knowing that I made someone’s day.”
And for local stores specializing in used vinyl, pressing problems aren’t a significant issue.
At Record City, a new and used music dealer with two Valley locations, customers can dig through boxes of records dating back to the ’60s and ’70s, or peruse a well-stocked wall of used VHS tapes, DVDs and CDs. Doug Tann has worked at the store’s Sahara location since August, arriving at the plum-colored building each day to greet die-hard metalheads and classic rock fanatics while organizing the store or picking through someone’s collection.
On a recent day, a customer arrived with his records haphazardly strewn across the trunk of his car—not a promising sight, Tann says. “It was all over the place, but you take your time, you start cherry picking, and you go, my goodness, there’s some stuff here.”
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