Vinyl records started to make an unexpected comeback in the mid-2000s. A comeback most would not have predicted. But why, of all the mediums out there, vinyl rose and is flourishing?

Freshmen year of high school, I was in my basement, rummaging around for some of my old books. A time when I still had very few responsibilities and the freedom to sit down and actually read. Shuffling through old boxes on the shelf, I noticed one box in particular. A faded brown, dust covered box stuffed to the brim with what looked like flat pieces of cardboard. Dragging it off the shelf, dust swarming my shirt, I struggled back upstairs.

I realized I grabbed a box full of old vinyl records my parents had collected over the years. Going through each one, I remained engrossed with the album covers of the vinyl, also known as sleeves or jackets, examining the artwork meticulously, like one of those I Spy books. I was looking for something specific but I wasn’t sure just what it was. I knew immediately I wanted to put some of the records up in some kind of frame, preserving the artwork and my parents’ memories instilled in them.

About a month later, my dad and I – mostly my dad – put together a mural. But for some reason it wasn’t enough. There was something missing. On my purple, bedroom wall were my parents’ memories. None of which were mine.

So I started to look for my own records that artists and bands put out. Many times, I would have to search directly through the record labels website or go to an actual record store.

Little did I realize that around this time, vinyl was gaining traction and popularity throughout the country.

The listening experience of music has continuously rolled with the changes of technology, refusing to collect any moss as it adjusted with the times. Most of the mediums however have faced a staggering death as CD’s and CD players met their fate, only for iPods to follow suit, heading to their grave. One medium unexpectedly trudged their way back to the masses however and slowly made an unexpected come back and vinyl started spinning once again.

About 55 minutes from Kent, I made the drive out to Cleveland, getting momentarily lost as I pulled into a back alley and into a parking lot. Vibrant, colorful murals decorated the brick walls surrounding a large parking. I called the President and founder of Gotta Groove Records.

“Hey Vince, it’s Adrian Leuthauser, I just wanted to let you know that I’m here, I believe.”

“Did you drive through the alley? Our entrance is under a small, orange awning. It’s got 42 in a big circle on it.”

I drove back around and found the orange awning, though the awning itself was no wider than the actual door itself. A large, white circle with “Gotta Groove Records” written on it hung on the brick building next to the door entrance. As I walked in and ventured towards the factory, the sounds of machines whirred about, each one letting out a sigh of relief as they pressed the vinyl.

In 2009, President and founder of Gotta Groove Records, Vince Slusarz kept his eye on the crest of the wave as vinyl grew. Forbes Magazine projected sales to reach heights near the $1 billion; a feat that this millennium has not witnessed. Vince first noticed this pattern back in 2006 and followed it till 2008, finally making the decision to open a vinyl press factory in 2009, knowing very well that sales and demand had only one place but to go up.

The first two vinyl that Gotta Groove pressed were local artists. Now, Gotta Groove has pressed vinyl across the nation and even across the world. But they wouldn’t be able to do this without the interest from the masses.

The tangibility of a vinyl is the leading cause for why record sales have increased so much, Vince believes. Teenagers and older are more than likely to stumble upon an old, dust ridden box filled with their parents’ vinyl, just like myself. Curiosity struck and they wanted to know what the circular disk was as they felt the grooves of the record like fingerprints.

“I think that’s a large reason of why it’s coming back, it’s that people want to own something physical,” Vince says over the whirs of the press machines. It’s easy to imagine each vinyl being pressed as you hear the machines clank, stuck on a loop as they repeat each process.

The 12” records that we know of today were first created by Peter Carl Goldmark who, at the time, worked with Columbia Records. The complexity of creating vinyl is intense, painstaking work as each one is handcrafted and inspected to ensure they are perfected and ready for the needle.

Before any of the machines can start churning, it all starts with paper work as Vince and his team communicate with various artists about what kind of vinyl they want, how many and what kind of colors they want. They start with test presses with what they call a lacquer. An aluminum disc that is generally larger than a typical 12” record. The lacquer contains the grooves necessary to make the vinyl. Once the grooves have been etched to the lacquer, it goes through the process of being a stamper, or a “mother” since the mother becomes what is used to create the finished vinyl.

From the mother, it is merely just a simple process of stamping the grooves onto the vinyl, which then get cut to the normal, 12” size.

But how is it that the needle on the record player translates the vinyl into our favorite song? Simple, just like our ear drums, the needle is actually just vibrating as it runs along the grooves of the record.

“Your ear drum reacts to vibrations and that is exactly what is happening to the needle, it’s vibrating something like 20,000 times per second,” Vince says, pointing out each individual groove on one of their already completed vinyl. The needle is vibrating at a ridiculous rate reading the grooves and if you were to put a vinyl under a strong microscope. Each groove shows just how unique it is as they look like winding mountains cascading into a river and following its winding path.

“So the left side of the groove is your left channel on the speaker and the right side of the groove is your right channel,” Vince says, as he explains just how detailed each groove actually is. “The bottom part of the groove is your bass frequencies and your treble frequencies are at the top of the groove. Just like your ear drum gets those sound waves, that needle vibrates and is turning that basically into sound.”

Unfortunately, before Gotta Groove Records even started to participate in the vinyl industry, vinyl stopped spinning for some time and manufacturers that crafted these records saw a dive of demand dither into thin air, as the vinyl jackets and record players collected dust in your parent’s basement.

Yet, just like Vince, David Ignizio, co-owner of Square Records in Akron, OH, had hope that vinyl would someday make the unexpected comeback. Just like vinyl, record stores were thriving right alongside as kids and adults would make trips to these stores to find their favorite or newest record.

Square Records first opened up shop in 2003 and will have been in business for 15 years this August. Opening around this time was a slight risk only because of the fact that vinyl really didn’t start to pick for a couple years after.

“We started with very little money and very little product but we just kept putting in every penny we made right back into the shop to build it up,” Ignizio says as I watched customers enter and leave the small shop that’s nestled on W. Market Street in Highland. Those in the shop would slowly shuffle through the selections of vinyl pulling out old names and new. “Right now, I think we’re at the point where, ideally, most businesses would want to start but we just had to go the slow route and it’s kind of working out.”

Square Records, a vibrant, turquoise building with tall, wide windows feels wedged between what seems to be a rundown theater and an odd red building that feels improperly placed. Yet, once inside Square Records, the smell of dust lingers inside. It’s not the dust smell that makes you sniffle and sneeze but the kind that brings you back to your grandmother’s room where she keeps her valuables. None of which have been touched in some time and the antique dust just happens to be there, unbothered.

There is always a time of death for certain technology and that’s what vinyl faced, briefly. Punk bands and metal bands were really the only life support vinyl had at the time. The smaller record labels never pulled the plug and fortunately within time, vinyl caught its breath once again.

When Square Records first opened their doors, it was about 50 percent CD’s and 50 percent vinyl but now, that number is significantly staggered as their sales are about 80 percent vinyl based.

Why this sudden new life though? Perhaps it’s the fact that vinyl has always been personal. As of January 2018, the popular music streaming service, Spotify, has 70 million paid subscribers. I myself am included in that 70 million. In June of 2017 The Verge reported that Spotify had surpassed 140 million active users. It’s not too much of a surprise to attribute music streaming services as a reason for not only vinyl to reach a demise but for CD’s and iPods to follow suit.

Vinyl held onto strings though and despite Spotify barreling its’ digital foot through the doors, vinyl pulled itself up and sales had skyrocketed every single year, outdoing the past year. For now, it seems as though it’s not stopping and is going to ride this trajectory for some undetermined amount of time.

Even though streaming services are convenient and make listening to music on the go much easier, vinyl has never been about taking it on the go. It’s about taking the music in and being in that moment. Vinyl is tangible, you can see the grooves and feel them, like holding someone’s hand and feeling the lines in their palms. It’s about holding the jacket and being able to enjoy the artwork and notice every little detail there is to know. Skipping tracks becomes difficult on a vinyl so you sit there and listen to every single note echo throughout the room.