PEORIA MAGAZINE June 2023

ONE MORE THING

DUST OFF THAT OLD TURNTABLE

I ’m jealous of Craig Moore. turntables, as I did. Moore, 76, is the longtime owner of Younger Than Yesterday, the record shop at 2615 N University St. Lately, he has been reliving his rock-and-roll youth through the eyes and ears of a species he had thought extinct: Young people crazy for vinyl records. More and more these days, they pop into the shop not just to buy new releases but to chat about music-industry trends, histories and anecdotes – just like youths did decades ago. “This is,” he said with a huge grin, “one of the things I really love the most.” It seemed like a lost love until the recent upsurge in vinyl sales, not just at his shop but nationally. The Recording Industry Association tracks sales of new recordings and issued its annual report recently. In 2022, for the first time in 35 years, vinyl outsold CDs. “Vinyl has created a whole new world of collecting among young people,” Moore said. To be sure, Moore’s increased foot traffic includes plenty of music fans old enough to recall having to make the You might be too if you spent a sizeable chunk of your youth hanging around record shops and

For the first time in 35 years, vinyl records outsell CDs, and Craig Moore is over the moon about it

BY PHIL LUCIANO PHOTOS BY RON JOHNSON

Craig Moore at his record shop

critical choice of whether to buy a new release on vinyl or 8-track. For them in 2023, new vinyl might be a reissue of old favorites such as Led Zeppelin IV or Pink Floyd’s The Wall . Nationally, new releases generally run $20 or more for a single album to as much as $50 for a double album. Even adjusted for inflation, those prices are higher – blame cost and demand – than in vinyl’s ‘70s heyday, when U.S. sales of albums were known to push past 350 million annually, compared to 41 million last year.

114 JUNE 2023 PEORIA MAGAZINE