• The Revenge of Vinyl Sales surpass CD for the first time since 1986

In a secluded street in the center of Valencia, a few meters from the gigantic FNAC premises, the Oldies record store still stands, against all odds. Some would say that entering it is immersing oneself in that old smell that inevitably refers to the past. But they, Vicente Fabuel and José Salvador, would judge that smell as

that of a certain sexual act, the one in which the relationship with music is lived by caressing a vinyl

. That smell and that touch, that fetishism, explain today that the oldest record store in Spain is looking for a new owner. Someone to take over for

a "healthy" business

that is far from in the doldrums, but needs a new personal boost.

"Age tells us that things are fine

,

"

explain to EL MUNDO Fabuel and Salvador, the two owners together with Carmen Arnal and Isabel Aguilar of a store that opened in September 1978 and that today is about to attend the retirement of the generation of its founders. To avoid the final closure, they have proposed to transfer the business to

whoever wants to pay 175,000 euros

and is willing to "come home late" after work. "You also get home late when you go out on a spree ...", ironizes Fabuel. And Oldies, after all, is worth it. There are already those who have been interested in the business.

Although their owners have witnessed the unstoppable decline of record stores in parallel with the generalization of pirating first and streaming later, Fabuel points out: “

We are not in the worst moment of music stores, far from it

. The store format is not exhausted and the young generations have come to give vinyl a new impetus ”.

Before entering the devotion of these music lovers to vinyl, there is a secret. That of Oldies: "It is the diversity of offer, playing all kinds of music when the stores tend to have a lower profile that, by the way, ends up portraying the owner." To understand each other, the key to survival is to be able to find a lady the single of her life or to keep as a treasure - waiting for the collector to pay 200 euros - that 60-year-old

Rock 'N' Roll With

vinyl.

The Johnny Burnette Trio

. "This is

the purest thing that has been done

in the birth of all rock ...", highlights Fabuel, delicately playing the album.

We go back to vinyl. "When we started, fortunately there were no CDs," recalls Salvador. "The CD has been something else,

very practical for the car but ... aesthetically there is no color

." According to Fabuel, its appearance "was an economic event for the industry and, therefore, for Oldies, for everyone." «When the CD came out, we started selling them naturally, but also with pain.

Now it is easy to say, but then we were a minority

who were not surrendered to that supposed modernity. Oldies never abandoned vinyl, not even in the days when it was totally discredited. " And they resisted, what if they resisted.

Sentimentality or faith in the format? «We were not strange creatures, as there was a whole international and local trend that was clear that vinyl has been the hegemonic medium in the history of 20th century music, the medium in which

all the music that marked a previous time has come out. and one afterwards,

”says Fabuel. «There have been other formats and none have been able to overcome it; in fact, he is the only one who has returned. About the CD (almost) nothing is known and the cassette has remained a

vintage

object

.

And here we could talk about the aesthetics of vinyl covers, the incomparable analog sound versus digital ... or

pure and simple fetishism

.

“Music is somewhat ethereal, and the only format that makes you believe you can play it is vinyl.

It is a fetish, I will not say that it is something sexual but almost, because it is a touch, a warmth ... », explains Fabuel.

Time - and music - has proved them right.

"He fed us and fed our souls."

So long life to vinyl.

And Oldies.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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