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Cassette tapes brought Veronika Cloutier to Pittsburgh. Vinyl LPs have kept her here.
Before moving to Pittsburgh from North Carolina in 2021, the former vocalist and guitarist for the band Attack Cat measured the city's livability by connecting with a local indie label that releases cassettes.
"The fact that there was going to be a music scene that was accepting was important," said Cloutier, 26, of Allentown. "It was good to know I could come here and do my thing."
Within weeks of arriving in Pittsburgh, Cloutier landed a job at The Government Center, the popular North Side record shop, bar and performance space. Today, she aids music aficionados as they snap up LPs at The Government Center Outpost, a satellite of the original location that recently opened on Dormont's Potomac Avenue.
"What people buy is all over the board — I'm always surprised by the stuff that people pick up," said Cloutier, the shop's manager.
"Obviously, Spotify is a place where things are accessible," she added. "But there's a lot of emphasis now on supporting bands you like, doing what you can as a consumer. … I think people are so aware right now that vinyl is a great way to support artists."
Those flocking to the newest record store in Pittsburgh's South Hills aren't alone.
Physical media is back
In 2023, for the second time since 1987, vinyl albums outsold CDs — accounting for 43 million records sold, according to data from the trade group Recording Industry Association of America.
Physical music formats — vinyl, cassettes, CDs — generated $1.9 billion in revenue in the U.S., an 11% jump from 2022 to 2023, RIAA data showed. Those figures just account for new sales, nothing related to the used market or transactions among vinyl collectors.
While steaming remains king, accounting for more than $14.3 billion in sales, more than seven out of every 10 physical releases Americans bought last year were on vinyl, RIAA data showed.
"Anecdotally, we do know a lot of newer releases — say, Taylor Swift — take advantage of the vinyl format to connect with their fans," said Matt Bass, RIAA's vice president of research and gold and platinum operations.
Gimmicks alone aren't driving the sales, though, Bass stressed.
"One trend we do see with people who buy vinyl is they're super-fans," he said. "They're consuming the music in any way possible."
Artists, too, are paying attention, Bass said.
Swift treated her Swifties to four standard versions and three limited editions of her 2022 LP "Midnights" on vinyl — in flashy colors like "blood moon" and "jade green" to boot. A Target-only version of the LP came on lavender vinyl and included a CD with three bonus tracks.
In 2023, Lana Del Ray released a limited edition, light-pink vinyl version through Amazon of her "Did You Know That There's A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd" album.
The English rock band New Order recently re-issued a two-LP singles collection on red and blue vinyl. Even The Beatles have gotten in on the trend, putting out a blue-vinyl, three-LP version of "The Beatles: 1967-1970."
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The California-based Ipecac Recordings this month put out three colored-vinyl versions of the new LP from Melvins, a Seattle-bred group with a potent discography championed by friend Kurt Cobain.
Two of the colored vinyl variants were sold out before the LP even was released on April 19. Revolver Magazine said the group has more than 20 albums available on vinyl.
"The music industry has probably transformed faster than any entertainment industry," Bass said. "Now that we're in the streaming era, fans are saying they want to embrace music at their fingertips."
Chris Grauzer isn't on RIAA's revenue radar — well, at least not yet.
The Swissvale man started working at Jerry's Records just one day a week in 2009. He purchased the business after owner and namesake Jerry Weber retired eight years later.
The iconic shop, which moved from Oakland to its perch on Squirrel Hill's Murray Avenue around 1994, traffics in used music. Grauzer said he buys no new material from distributors or directly from labels.
Grauzer also inherited a lot — a lot! — of Weber's stuff.
"We definitely have more than a million items — if you count the LPs, 45s, 78s, CDs and cassettes we have now," said Grauzer, 40. "We're such a big store, we're constantly putting stuff out.
"In the used market, if you put out stuff that's in demand, it won't stick around long," he said. "We still have a lot of people who come in on a daily basis, every other day or twice a week … There are a lot of old-school Jerry's customers who come often."
Releases from '70s-era classic rock icons — think Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd — always sell well, Grauzer said. And you can't go wrong with jazz masters such as Miles Davis and John Coltrane. (Jazz records from the Big Band era, however, don't move as well.)
Grauzer, who grew up in Minneapolis and moved to Pittsburgh in 2008, feels vinyl excels in areas where digital recordings simply cannot.
Difference is tangible
"One is the sound — it sounds different and, in some eyes, it just sounds better," he said. "It just has kind of a warm sound. There's a difference listening to Grand Funk Railroad on a CD instead of a record."
A record's cover art is more impressive — Grauzer said "tangible" — on a 12-inch LP platter instead of via the click of a button on Spotify or Pandora streaming services.
Streaming is a passive activity, Grauzer noted. You can stream music from a computer in the background, droning and unaffected, for five hours, if you so choose.
An LP requires attention — engagement — he stressed. For one, you need to flip sides to hear the whole thing.
"It ends up being a much more immersive experience — you have to tend to it more," he said. "It's something you can feel. And I think something is kind of lost with that in digital formats."
Believe it or not, cassette guru Eric Stevens wasn't pulled into the orbit of indie-rock by a Dictaphone tape.
Born in upstate New York and raised in northern Pennsylvania, Stevens grew up in the aughts sharing digital music files peer-to-peer on his computer via BitTorrent. It wasn't until he left St. Marys — the Elk County home of Straub Brewery — to study film at Clarion University that he had his "a-ha" moment with physical media.
"I was just enamored with the film process, the emulsion layer you're exposing light to," said Stevens, now 33 and living in Greenfield. "It was something like a sibling to tape — it's endearing in a way film is."
After moving to Pittsburgh a decade ago, Stevens met someone through a friend who owned stacks of old cassette decks.
One — a Nakamichi X7, a professional-level piece of recording equipment — caught his eye. He had seen similar decks fetch upwards of $1,000 online.
This friend of a friend wanted $150.
"I felt like I had to put it to a greater good," he laughed.
In the midst of the covid-19 pandemic, Nakamichi in tow, Stevens sought (and received) a blessing to start his cassette label from Connor Murray — founder of the scene-defining Crafted Sounds label, whose early releases exclusively came on cassette.
On Oct. 6, 2021, Stevens posted to Instagram: Michi Tapes was born.
Stevens later teamed up with Crafted Sounds to co-release the third LP by Pittsburgh group Gaadge. He also has blurred the line between his cassette and film work — releasing a Zurich Cloud Motors music video under the Michi Tapes banner.
The label's 30th release, Blinder's "Drugs of the Sun," hit Bandcamp on Feb. 23. Sam Rubin's "Bullet," which Stevens produced with the Pleasure Tapes label, followed in March.
Stevens has released great music by Gina Gory, the new-ish indie band from Veronika Cloutier, the aforementioned Government Center Outpost manager. (Cloutier said the band is debating about pressing a new single to vinyl. No decisions yet.)
Stevens estimates he's dubbed about 850 tapes for Michi Tapes on his cassette deck. Now, he's thinking about building a Michi Tapes website.
But, is it all too digital?
"Tape just has that endearing quality that, by default, just got me obsessed with it — it's hard to explain," he laughed. "I feel like that's what people like about vinyl: it's a ritual experience."
"With vinyl, you have to enjoy an album in its entirety," he added. "It's good for testing tolerance. You start to like things differently because you're forced to spend time with it."
Justin Vellucci is a TribLive reporter covering crime and public safety in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. A longtime freelance journalist and former reporter for the Asbury Park (N.J.) Press, he worked as a general assignment reporter at the Trib from 2006 to 2009 and returned in 2022. He can be reached at jvellucci@triblive.com. Categories:
AandE | Local | Music | Pittsburgh | South Hills Record | Top StoriesRelated
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