A few years ago now, just after i-pods became ubiquitous and just before all the CD stores closed, the music press, various blogs, industry mags and audiophile publications were trumpeting the return of Vinyl LPs. Records are back! In a big way! They were quick to point out though, that overall, vinyl sales still represented only a tiny percentage of music sales, about .33 1/3% but still, this small slice was set to double in size, like a microscopic replicating gamete, into a slightly less tiny, overall percentage of music sales. Great, I thought. This is fantastic news, because I own half a record store. Maybe the place will finally turn a profit.

On November 26 1922 after six years poking around in the Valley of Kings and running out of money and support, archeologist Howard Carter, came to a plaster wall at the bottom of recently excavated staircase. His search was at an end. He had finally found the door to the Pharoah’s tomb. As the diggers broke through, Carter, trembling slightly, stepped into a chamber which no human being had set foot in for more than three thousand years. Inside, complete silence, utter stillness reigned, not a speck of dust in motion the treasures within, untouched for three millennia. Unfortunately, Carter’s sensations on the threshold of King Tut’s tomb were not wholly dissimilar to those of anyone visiting the record store on a Wednesday afternoon in a post sub-prime world. Ah, but that was then! The Daily Telegraph’s Andrew Hough announced today that New York teenagers have sparked a worldwide renaissance trend in LP record sales. Records now account for almost one percent of new music sales. Used vinyl sales of course are harder to gauge but recently we have seen a marked upswing in record sales. There were thousands of web searches for, “Used Records NYC,” this month and so many unexpected visits to our website that it actually crashed. Do websites still do that? There were hundreds of Chucky Taylor clad feet tromping through the isles to get to Dylan, Hendrix, Led Zep the Floyd and of course The Stones. I was so happy to be informed of this! Thank You Jesus! Thank You Lord!