INDIANAPOLIS — While cats are known for having nine lives, the same could be said for vinyl records. After a long slow decline in popularity during the 1980s, records are back and increasing in popularity again.
“Last year, sales were up year-over-year,” Patrick Burtch said. “They've been up year-over-year, I think for like 17 consecutive years now. [If] you would have told somebody that in the year 2000, they would have laughed at you.”
Burtch is a co-owner of Square Cat Vinyl in Fountain Square. The record shop’s name comes from the neighborhood and its unofficial mascots.
“Feral cats are kind of a symbol of the neighborhood,” Burtch said. “We paired them together and it just sort of stuck.”
Square Cat Vinyl features a variety of new and used albums, but it wasn’t always that way.
“When we first started, it was more old school classic rock like the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd,” Burtch said. “Over these last 8 years, it's become a wider range of bands that we are selling and it's partially because more bands are putting stuff out on vinyl, and I think the mainstream record industry has figured out that they can actually make money on records again.”
Much of that success can be attributed to Record Store Day.
“I think it brings out people that normally don't come out to record stores," Burtch said. “It’s a great vehicle to promote records [and] record stores. There's a lot of cool, interesting releases that are coming out that day that you can't get anywhere except the independent record stores. It's just it's kind of just a celebration of all things music.”
Despite being a self-described “music snob,” Burtch says celebrating all kinds of music is what being an independent record store is all about.
“If you want to buy a Barbra Streisand record, or you want to buy a Khruangbin record, we're gonna serve you the same way,” Burtch said. “If they're listening to music, they're supporting a local record store, it's all good.”
Purchasing a physical record is also good for musical artists.
“I think there's an element of artist support because I think people know that artists are not making money on streaming,” Burtch said. “It's a great platform for myself, or whoever, to find music, but artists are making nothing on that. They're making something when you buy a physical record.”
But there’s more to Square Cat Vinyl than making money. It’s a business focused on making memories too.
“We just had a small little elopement ceremony last week,” Burtch said. “We have never done [one] before, and the only reason I allowed them to do it was because they suckered me in with, ‘Well, our first date was at Record Store Day in 2018,’ so maybe you'll meet your significant other and get married based off of records.”
Record Store Day is April 20.
