A New Era for Vinyl
Going into a record store is a lot like metal detecting on a beach. You find a lot of bottle caps and pop cans, but sometimes you’ll get some buried treasure. Record stores are all about the fun of finding something new and exploring new ideas and genres. The socialization of coming together and sharing each other’s tastes from different generations is what fuels the passion for our musical interests. We have become glued to a system where we if we like a song we hear online or on the radio, we pay a dollar for that one song or $10 for the album. We are told what music to listen to because of what’s popular or because of web pages suggesting different songs that use complicated algorithms most of us don’t understand. Looking for new music has become too robotic and arbitrary. If you grew up in the Digital Age of music, you may not know the joy going into a record store may bring you.
Hi-Voltage Records on Sixth Ave. is a great place to experience this sensation. When you walk by, you can see through the windows the columns of record selection they have. With an inventory of over 50,000 records by various artists and genres, it is more than likely that you will find something new that you will love. You’ll find indie, rock, pop, metal, country, rap, and everything in between. The store is cleanly laid out by musical genres. You’ll find everything from Mumford and Sons to the Ventures. They have records that are more than 100 years old. Giving you an excellent selection from past to present music styles.
Manager of Hi-Voltage Records Brian Kenny talked about his passion for vinyl, “Vinyl is cool, it’s collectable, it’s tangible. You can hold it, smell it, taste it. I wouldn’t advise tasting it, of course. For me records are sort of like a memory book, just about everything I own sort of puts me in a certain time of my life when I bought that particular band or that particular record. I can just thumb through my records and it’s like a photo album.”
Vinyl has made an interesting comeback in the last decade because of the Digital Age. Since we have all have our musical library in our computers, there has been a need for people to have a tangible piece of the musical collection. When you have friends over, you don’t say, “Hey, come over here and look at my iTunes collection.” Having a vinyl collection is much more appealing and says a lot more about a person. When you look at a person’s vinyl collection, you get a looking glass into that person’s personality and emotions. It all starts with buying that first record.
Hi-Voltage Records has great prices on new and used records. Starting at a few dollars for used all the way up to $20 or $40 for a brand-new or an in demand record. If you can’t get your mom’s old record player to work, Hi-Voltage has USB record players that plug right into your computer starting at around $100 to $200. Hi-Voltage Records is a great place to get your vinyl collection started and get you involved in exploring new music.
Keep your local record store alive Tacoma!
