Vinyl thrives at United Record Pressing, oldest record maker in US

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — 

During the six decades since United Record Pressing stamped retired the Beatles' archetypal U.S. single, the country's oldest vinyl grounds shaper has survived 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs, Napster, iPods and streaming services. Now, the Nashville-based institution has rebounded truthful dramatically that immoderate of its instrumentality and exertion has been retrofitted to support gait with an ever-growing request for old-school vinyl.

The 75-year-old institution has adjusted its concern from filling jukeboxes to helping DJs rotation and stocking shelves contempt a pandemic. On shelves successful its warehouse are maestro versions by Johnny Cash, Kanye West and The Black Crowes.

When Mark Michaels bought the institution successful 2007, vinyl was fading — its 38 employees mostly made singles for rap artists, often promos for clubs. Michaels wanted a hands-on accidental to physique a concern and thought helium could support this 1 steady, but not turn it substantially. It besides came with a affluent past arsenic the archetypal grounds pressing works successful the South, including an flat atop the mill that housed Black artists and euphony executives during segregation.

"You walked into this gathering and you conscionable felt 50, 60 years of past and conscionable the value of what it stood for," said Michaels, the company's CEO and chair. "And yeah, you you get choked up, you get gooseflesh conscionable experiencing that."

Today, United Record Pressing runs a newer mill six times bigger than what Michaels bought, with astir 125 employees who marque up to 80,000 records a day.

A assortment of factors person boosted vinyl successful caller years, from autarkic artists insisting connected vinyl albums to large container retailers getting connected committee again.

In 2023, U.S. revenues from vinyl records grew 10% to $1.4 billion, the 17th-straight twelvemonth of growth, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. Records accounted for 71% of revenues from non-digital euphony formats, and for the 2nd clip since 1987, vinyl outpaced CDs successful full sold.

United Record Pressing underwent its ain evolution. The archetypal pressing works was formed successful 1949 by Nashville statement Bullet Records. In the 1950s, it changed to Southern Plastics Inc. and focused connected 7-inch singles preferred by jukebox makers.

In the aboriginal 1960s, the institution was pressing much than 1 cardinal records per month. It signed a woody to nutrient singles for Motown Records and moved to a bigger installation that included the flat that hosted The Supremes, Smokey Robinson and others — and which became known arsenic the "Motown Suite." In 1963, it pressed the Beatles' archetypal U.S. single, "Please Please Me." Then successful the 1970s, a restructuring turned the institution into United Record Pressing.

During the 1980s, records dwindled to a niche market. DJs inactive needed records for their turntables. Rap and hip-hop artists utilized them for "scratching." But CDs had overtaken them.

By the precocious 2000s, indie artists were insisting connected releasing vinyl records. By 2015, records were broadly embraced again, but determination were fewer manufacturers, and they were relying connected presses from the 1960s and 1970s and a constricted fig of specialists who could run them, Michaels said. Demand accrued again during the coronavirus pandemic.

"It's art," Michaels said of vinyl records. "Artists and fans, they privation thing tactile to clasp connected to and prosecute with. It's casual to watercourse music, and streaming euphony is simply a fantastic mode to observe caller music. But you know, astatine the extremity of the day, it's benignant of sonic wallpaper."

Today, the mill mixes aged and new.

There's plentifulness of wood paneling connected the throwback audio instrumentality utilized to trial maestro versions of records earlier they are utilized to property copies. And the mill level has its stock of retrofitted pressing instrumentality that looks and sounds similar it's been astir since the past clip vinyl ruled the market.

Technology is improving the process, too. Beyond the older presses are sleek, recently made machines that plop retired records much softly and efficiently. And determination are immense sacks of colorful pebbles from discarded worldly that tin beryllium pressed again into caller records.

The machines that stamp maestro copies usage exertion that had been successful spot to nutrient CDs and DVDs, present retooled for vinyl.

In a country farther backmost successful the factory, the whizzing of machinery gives mode to music.

That's wherever Tyler Bryant mightiness perceive to 10 records successful a displacement arsenic the company's prime power lead. Talking implicit the rhythms of harmonica from a Cash album, Bryant said helium discovers galore artists and records that wouldn't beryllium connected his list, ranging from Harry Styles to Beyoncé's "Cowboy Carter" to indie artists.

"A batch of variety, that's what I appreciate," Bryant said. "I don't similar being stuck to conscionable 1 genre, you know?"

A fewer miles away, architects and a operation unit are astatine enactment to sphere the aged 1962 works and pave the mode for its future. As for what that volition look like, Michaels says enactment tuned.

"My imaginativeness is not wholly crystallized yet, but the mandate is, it's immoderate of the astir important abstraction successful each of music," Michaels said. "It needs to beryllium celebrated. It needs to beryllium thing that radical tin prosecute with."