It’s natural for trends to go in and out of style. Low-rise skinny jeans, permed mullets and frozen yoghurt shops are a few honourable mentions that bob up and down on the culturally-acceptable-scale.
However, those trends pale in comparison to the catastrophic fall and victorious rise of the record.
Beatdisc Records in Parramatta has been western Sydney’s go-to destination for new and used vinyl, CDs and cassettes for 30 years – battling through the streaming-induced lull and now thriving on the vinyl revival.
“Beatdisc Records has been here for 31 years now. Peter Curnovic has owned it for nearly 20 of those years,” explained Store Manager Tom Houlahan, who has worked there for 17 years.
“I was there in his early days where it wasn’t super busy and there wasn’t as much interest in physical media.
“I went through the quiet years and then saw the interest in vinyl grow from the mid-2010s onwards.”
During those quiet years, from the mid-2000s to the mid-2010s, Beatdisc Records held firm while their vinyl-selling brethren fell.
“There were definitely a few years there where we were concerned,” Houlahan noted.
“There might have been several months where we weren’t ordering new stock because we couldn’t pay the suppliers and we were surviving on second-hand items and selling movies and Blu-ray’s on eBay to keep the funds ticking over.
“But, through all that, we always had hope and we always loved the idea of independent record stores and independent media.”
Over the last 10 to 15 years, the novelty of music at our fingertips has worn off, and more people are turning towards physical media.
“The idea of owning music and physically handling it has become special again for a lot of people,” Houlahan explained of the increased interest.
“Streaming makes the music more disposable because any piece of music is at the touch of your finger at any moment. That’s a good thing because you can discover more music, but it also makes it less special.
“There is no personal connection or emotional tie to it. However, if you’re spending money on a piece of vinyl that you will own for the rest of your life, that’s a different story.”
The vinyl revival has brought with it a new demographic of enthusiasts.
“If you mentioned to anyone working in an independent record store 10 years ago the kind of people who would be buying records today, I don’t think they would have believed you,” Houlahan shared.
“They wouldn’t have believed that a large proportion of kids who are still in school would be saving their money to buy modern pop records – no one predicted that.
“We see teenagers all the way through to senior citizens buying physical media, as well as office workers on their lunch breaks.”
However, with the increase in interest came an increase in prices.
“Records – especially major label big pop artists – became out of the budget for young buyers, so they turned to CDs as the more affordable way to buy their favourite albums,” Houlahan stated.
“A $25 CD is a lot more attainable than an $80 record. That’s been another side of the vinyl revival – it’s offset into somewhat of a CD and cassette revival because people are rediscovering physical media.”
The store manager considers Beatdisc Records a western Sydney institution.
“We’re proud of the fact that we were able to survive because having somewhere in Parramatta in the centre of western Sydney that brings together like-minded people is very special,” Houlahan said.
Ally Hall joined the team 2024, and focuses on entertainment and community stories. She is a graduate of the University of South Australia.