'I don't see it slowing down': West Allis record store says vinyl sales are better than ever, for all ages

 

WEST ALLIS, Wis. (CBS 58) -- The 67th Grammy Awards aired on CBS Sunday night, Feb. 2, shining a light on music's hottest stars, like Kendrick Lamar, Chappell Roan, and so many more.

The longtime awards show is a reminder each year that music can be a time capsule.

A record store in West Allis provides a space for you to step into the time capsule.

"It's a little bit of everything, right?" CBS 58 reporter, Jenna Wells, asked Scott Heifetz, the owner of Record Head.

"It is," he said. "It's a lot of everything."

Walking into Record Head is nearly overwhelming.

Rows of vinyl records, new and old, line the store from front to back.

"We have all the types of music that people would want," the owner said.

In 1972, Scott Heifetz opened the store in Milwaukee, eventually expanding to its current space on Greenfield Avenue in West Allis.

"Throughout the years it just kept growing," he explained.

It's a buy-and-sell business, keeping stock of changing trends.

"Sometimes I'll get somebody who passed away, I'll get their collections, and then I kind of decipher what I think is going to sell," said Aletamarie Kelliher, the manager and buyer at Record Head. "If they have a Fleetwood Mac, Rumors, I'm gonna buy, or Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon."

For thirty years, she has been crafting the encyclopedia that Record Head has become.

"I just absorbed all that music back in the late 70s early 80s," Kelliher said.

She meets customers of all ages, from all different parts of the city, looking for every genre.

"It's just from years of this, doing this, you kind of know what people are into," she explained.

"A lot of the kids too, now, they think it's a happening thing, where they're buying the records and putting them on a turntable," Heifetz said.

That wasn't always the case, though.

"You know, 15, 20 years ago, records were pretty much dead. We probably only had a very minimal amount of them," Heifetz explained.

"I remember telling Scott probably 15 years ago, we can't get rid of albums," Kelliher said. "There's going to be somebody that's going to want them, but our sales were just miniscule."

Thankfully, she was right. With COVID-19 lockdowns came a resurgence in vinyl sales.

"They were stuck at home, so I think people just wanted entertainment," Kelliher explained. "Just the richness of the sound, and the cover art, and people just like to sit and look at the liner notes."

Dropping a needle takes a trip back to the days when the shop got its start.

"It's really kind of gratifying to see that now our sales are better than ever," Heifetz said.

For more than five decades, Record Head has seen new artists come in and change the game, from Karen Carpenter to Sabrina Carpenter.

"Right now, it would be Tyler the Creator, or Billie Eilish, or Sabrina Carpenter," Kelliher said. "Like, the Taylor Swift people. They collect each color and each picture of her. So, I have to order all the volumes of Taylor Swift."

Older artists are still drawing a crowd, as The Beatles are 2025 Grammy nominees for Record of the Year.

"Everybody wants nostalgia. They just want to be happy, and it was a fun time," Kelliher said. "Fifty years from now, we will still be listening to Led Zeppelin, or we will still be listening to Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. I mean, this stuff is not going away."

As times change, music will change, but this shop is proof that some things always come back around.

"I just want records to be around forever and ever," Kelliher said.

"I don't see it slowing down," Heifetz said.