TRANSCRIPT:
This store in Melbourne's northern suburbs is having an especially busy day.
It's one of hundreds of venues across Australia to take part in an international event known the world over as Record Store Day, which promotes and celebrates vinyl.
Waric Cameron is from Josey Records, an online store that specialises in these albums.
He says the day began in 2007 as a way to keep independent music stores alive.
"Record stores were floundering. And this was peak digital download and Apple iTunes and stuff like that. So just the hardcore vinyl buyers were left buying at record stores. So there was a few record stores left. There was a dwindling business model."
Tim Everist, the owner of Sound Merch in Collingwood, says the day has grown in popularity.
"Yeah, we had people lining up from 7 o'clock in the morning... Vinyl is a format that cannot and will not die."
Vinyl albums once dominated the scene as the best way to experience music outside of a concert venue, but gradually the format was supplanted by CDs - and then streaming services.
But these music fans say there's something special about the vinyl format - and the experience of shopping for an album.
"You spend all day just going up and down just trying to find what you want, and it's like a little treasure hunt."
"Yeah, every place has something different. And then you'll find one of your favourite albums and it's so exciting to look through."
For Sydney musician Montaigne, it's also about the importance of accessibility to music for millions of people, including artists themselves.
"Something I think a lot about is the fact that recording artists can't just really be recording artists anymore to get by. You have to be so many other things and derive so many different streams of income in order to record music. And so the importance of Record Store Day and days like today where you're buying physical media is that, that's actually money in the pocket of a recording artist, you know."
The numbers bear out this surge in popularity.
Sales of the old-fashioned vinyl album format faded out for a while - but the latest data from the Australian Recording Industry Association showing these particular album sales have rebounded strongly, jumping 14 per cent last year alone to just over $42 million.
Waric Cameron is thrilled to see its resurgence.
"For us, records have never gone out of style. We started collecting records in our teens, so that would have been in the 80s, and it just never left for us. But there are whole generations that grew up without vinyl. They grew up with just downloads. So there is a whole generation that didn't see that, but are coming back to it now.”
