Vinyl Sales On The Rise In North America?

15 Apr 2010

Vinyl

With vinyl sales still pushing on in parts of the world such as the UK and Europe, other areas have been in a steady decline. In the USA and Canada stores and distributors solely carrying vinyl are closing down and locking up their doors.

Since the early 2000s, distribution giants such as Nemesis and Syntax, who provided the majority of jungle / drum & bass vinyl in North America, have gone under leaving room for others to expand their markets and try their luck.

Even UK giant Nu Urban Music had to shut down their USA operations after a steady decrease in sales due to lack of merchants providing their stock.

Most cities are lucky if they have a record store available to them. Even in major markets such as New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Kansas City and Dallas, these shops are extremely hard to find.

The fact is, even the bigger stores like Breakbeat Science and Satellite Records of NYC, including global music suppliers; Tower Records of Los Angeles, just cannot compete with online sales of overseas stores due to the lack of local distribution. With more than 3,000 record stores closing in the U.S. between 2003 and 2008, the future looks dim for vinyl purists.

There is, however, a shred of light as sales are slowly picking up with the help of a few. North America's and ragga's biggest boost has come from RCola's JungleX, an independent online vinyl distribution company based out of Montreal, Canada.

With over 40 labels worldwide, JungleX has been serving record shops and DJs steadily since 2003. Also spawning around that time is one of the only remaining drum & bass stores in the U.S., Trainspotters Music, based in Allston, Massachusetts; just outside of Boston.

The lack of distribution and stores has also given new life to record pools such as Analog Junglist. Operated by DJ Ekim out of Florida, Analog Junglist provides new releases and dubplates before they are hitting the major online shops from labels such as Toxemia Records, Celestial Conspiracy, N2O, and Warlord Dubplate.

Users can subscribe on a month to month basis, all the way up to a full year that will supply at least five new releases per month as well as random extras including clothing, mp3s, and additional label swag.

While it's no doubt that traveling with CDs, laptops, or even just thumb drives is much easier than a flight case, nothing can beat the feeling of wax on a spinning platter, nor can the analogue sound be compared to anything currently digital.

Words: Ragga Scum