There is likely a catch-all name for the behavioral adjustments and alterations we all subject ourselves to with the artificial optimism that comes in the post-holiday afterglow. We’ve all seen (or been) the suddenly fervent jogger risking frostbite and shattered bones attempting to navigate icy sidewalks in early January. In retail, or at least music retail over the last decade or more, this energy is defined by what we’ll call the “New Turntable People.”
There is roughly a month between mid-December and mid-January where the music industry takes a breather from releasing new albums. Other than Christmas concerts and cover bands, few artists want to tour this time of year. Media outlets and retail machinery shift gears to their consideration of year end best of lists or stocking more for the gift givers than the regular clientele. Rather than the regulars themselves in December you get to meet their grandparents. It is, for the most part, delightful. They will tell you roughly the same story: “They wanted a new turntable for Xmas, so now we have to get them something to play on it!” Easy. They’ll usually have a list of titles, and we’ll usually have those titles, because they’re usually the same titles.
The trickier, more challenging period comes between Xmas and New Year’s. That week is generally made up of people visiting who are taking a break from their families and shopping for themselves. That’s also easy and great conversations are abundant. There is the mix of visitors and regulars that are filling in year end want lists or using up gift cards, which can be fun, though planning for how much extra stock to invest in that might spill past gift shopping and into this period can be hard to determine. There are the people who unwittingly told all their relatives the same three records and ended up with three copies of Fleetwood Mac Rumours, which is a few too many Rumours for most.
The real period of slapstick comedy and abstract horror comes the week after New Year’s. That week is filled with folks who have a few extra days before they have to be back to work or go back to school and so are kind of filling in the time. It is also the true dawn of the “New Turntable People.”
The “New Turntable People” are not a monoculture, though they do fit into a few discrete categories. There are the “New Turntable People” who are “getting back into it,” meaning they either have a turntable that’s been sitting unused in their basements for twenty years, or just bought a brand new turntable for the first time in twenty years and have caught vinyl fever, which is, for most, more pleasant than COVID. This subcategory is defined by how engaged they’ve been with music culture during that fallow, non-turntable having, period. There are the linear folk who have been keeping up via some other combination of formats and are just adding to that experience. There are the looping people, who, as each new format is introduced, fully commit to it and re-purchase the same ten to fifty albums they’ve always owned. As modern philosopher Sheryl Crow has opined, “if it makes you happy / it can’t be that bad.”
The truly “New Turntable People” are those for whom the device is also a portal to becoming music fans. This subcategory is also split into two subsubcatetories and one newish subsubsubcategory. First there are the “New Turntable People” who are in their mid-to-late twenties or older… there is no upper age limit to this category. Their defining characteristic, other than having bought a new turntable, is that they have only the vaguest of notions what music they actually like. This is of course not dissimilar from the purchase of expensive running shoes or kitchenware one assumes will provide the expertise required for proper usage. We’ve all been there.
Second are the very young “New Turntable People” who maybe also are just finding their way to become not just turntable/vinyl fans but also music fans. They’ll be all right. Mistakes made just open new doors at this point in life. The subset of these very young “New Turntable People” are the ones who are thirteen or under and come in with one of their parents. It becomes immediately and abundantly clear that it was the parent and not the young person who was excited by minting a “New Turntable Person.” While distractedly flipping through the used N section the young person is bombarded by suggestions from their parent. “Look! They have The Eagles! Do you like The Eagles? When I was your age I had a copy of Hotel California on CD! Do you like The Eagles?”
From the other side of the counter you just smile and breathe. But some early days in January, as you’re also dealing with inventory and year end paperwork, are more challenging than others.
So far today I’ve seen a 50 something woman in a Red Hot Chili Peppers hoodie with a RHCP tattoo on her forearm buy a RHCP Greatest Hits record… which struck me as weird but also predictable.
A cab driver I always dreaded getting when I used to shuttle between this job and one on campus, mainly because he’d tell me about some computer upgrade or hardware he’d purchased and then pause, looking longingly at me as if I was meant to answer a question… which I didn’t, because he didn’t actually ask one… suddenly appeared in the shop for the first time to tell me he’d purchased a turntable / radio combo from Canadian Tire [long pause, longing look, no question asked]. Eventually he did ask if we had any George Thorogood, which we often do, but not today. I outlined the titles we could order, and when I got to the end of the list which was Live in Boston he said, with certainty, “that one is 4LP” and stared soulfully at me [long pause, longing look, no question asked].
Lastly a couple who were themselves not “New Turntable People,” but buying for friends or family who had made the transformation, eschewed any advice I was willing to offer and instead spent half an hour shouting generic possibilities across the small shop at each other. As I was futzing with some of my aforementioned paperwork I glanced up to witness the gentleman of the species trying desperately and failing miserably to wedge a used but until recently pristine copy of Queen’s Greatest Hits back into a misjudged sequence of record sleeves. I interrupted his struggle with a quiet suggestion that a) he should stop doing that and bring the record to the counter b) that he had, in fact made his choice for what record to purchase as his fingerprints all over its surface marked him as its owner and c) that there is no point in checking a record’s condition if you’re completely inept at doing so.
For the rest of the week, in the quieter moments, as I smiled and breathed, I took comfort that soon enough things would go back to what we loosely describe as normal. And that at least a few of these “New Turntable People” would become part of that normal. And then someone came in with two copies of the three copies of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours they’d received for Xmas.