Vinyl Record History

Austin’s Music Scene and Waterloo Records: From Then to Now

The vinyl record first arrived on the music scene in the 1880's, revolutionizing the commercialization of music. In 1948, over half a century later, stores specializing specifically in the sales of vinyl records slowly began to pop up across the United States. By the late 1950's and early 1960's, when the music scene really started to take off, record stores became more prevalent (Goss). While the music scene spread rapidly across America, Austin, Texas had already begun making headway in becoming “the live music capital of world” with German Music Halls becoming popular after the Civil War. Not much later, jazz venues, big band dances halls, and blues bars began to fill the

The digital music format began to rise due to the popularity and improvements of technologies like the iPod, iPhone, and other similar digital audio players. This created the new trend of purchasing digital copies of music as opposed to the tangible forms. This technologic advancement was both amazing and awful, as it revolutionized the music industry and made music extremely portable, but also killed physical forms of music. As sales of digital downloads skyrocketed, through venues like iTunes, record stores began closing their doors. Well-known music conglomerates, like Virgin, Tower Records, and Sam Goody’s also felt the blow from digital music and close their doors as well. The shockwave spread across America dwindling record stores, in the US, down to a little over 2,000 stores. Thankfully, this hard hit to record retailer seemed to completely bypass Waterloo Records. It is not certain as to what the actual armor was that protected the store and ensured its survival, but vinyl enthusiasts are thankful the store is still around. Perhaps, it was Kunz’s business model and his desire to appeal to music lovers, or his loyal customers made up of musicians and average joes, that were the key to Waterloo's success. Britt Daniels, the lead singer from the bands Spoon and Divine Fits, trying to explain Waterloo's magic stating, “I remember meeting Alejandro Escovedo for the first time when he worked at Waterloo records and the Vinyl Annex and asking him about the Walker Brothers and him just really taking his time to tell me all about Scott Walker and what the best records were, what the history of this guy was, and you can’t get that on iTunes, ya know”