VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: The Sound Garden Syracuse and the revival of vinyl.
Mason Verdicchio Verdicchio: In downtown Syracuse lies a store that is home to a returning lost medium – vinyl records. Whether you’re looking for soundtracks, classic hip-hop, new releases or anything in between, The Sound Garden has you covered.
Verdicchio: Vinyl records were a lost memory in an age of cassettes in the 90s, CDs in the 2000s and of course, streaming in the 2010s. general manager of The Sound Garden, Nick Shelton says that the rise of streaming left a personal gap in the music listening ritual.
Nick Shelton: Along with that, people lost a personal connection to the music they were listening to. Like it almost just became background. You could just skip from track to track. Who cares?
Verdicchio: But within the last decade or so, even though streaming is still king, vinyl records have made a resurgence. According to Billboard and Sherwood News, 2021 marked the first year where vinyl records outsold any other physical music medium since the late 1990s. Shelton believes records give you something streaming can’t quite provide.
Shelton: A record is something different. Like, yeah, you can skip tracks, but you have to lift the needle off and on. It like, forces you to listen more and actually engage with the music more.
Verdicchio: But what makes The Sound Garden unique from other record stores and, more specifically, Syracuse?
Shelton: It’s a pretty like, I guess, cultural and especially multicultural area. Just the variety of people we have coming through on a regular basis, which I attribute to the location, I think is a major part of that.
Verdicchio: So Sound Garden is unique, but why is there a need for it? I could go get an album like this on Amazon, eBay, or any other online store. Well, that’s the thing. This isn’t just a store, it’s a community. Any online store can offer you the same thing, but what they can’t offer is the space for human interaction. Shelton has seen this with his own eyes.
Shelton: Through the years, I’ve met a lot of people that have become friends that were customers. I watched other friendships form amongst people here, I met my girlfriend here.
Verdicchio: So the next time you’re buying your records on Amazon, consider The Sound Garden or your local record store, because it could change your life beyond music. In downtown Syracuse, Mason Verdicchio, NCC News.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) — The Sound Garden in downtown Syracuse is a part of the recent revival of vinyl records and helps foster a community that used to be a staple in cities and towns nationwide.
Until around 2021, vinyl records were a gone and forgotten medium in the music industry. After the height of vinyl record popularity in the 1980s, cassette tapes and CDs became the dominant way to listen to music. Then streaming took over in the 2010s.
Recently, vinyl records have seen a spike in popularity. 2022 was just the second year since 1991 that vinyl records outsold CDs as the top album-purchasing format, according to Billboard.
“People got really excited about streaming because of its convenience and its ease of use,” said Nick Shelton, general manager of The Sound Garden. “But I think along with that, people lost a personal, personal connection to the music they were listening to, like it almost just became background.”
Shelton believes the ritualistic aspect of listening to music on vinyl helps people to listen to music in ways they’ve either forgotten to or never have before.
“There’s almost like a ritualistic aspect to like playing a record, like, take it out of the sleeve, let’s lift the dust, cover up on the record, play to put it on the needle, the whole thing, get the receiver going,” Shelton said. “So I think that forces people to pay attention more to the music, rather than just having them as background noise.”
The Sound Garden also fills a community gap that used to be a staple in American culture. He views the record store as a gathering place for people from all walks of life with different tastes.
“Everyone here is basically here for the same reason. And through the years, I’ve met a lot of people that have become friends, that were customers,” said Shelton. “I watched other friendships form amongst people here. I met my girlfriend here. So you know, all this sort of stuff that I think fosters a sense of community based on a shared interest.”
Even though vinyl might seem like a thing of the past, The Sound Garden is showing that the medium still has a lot to give to local communities.