Kerrie Joyce 
Whether you own a turntable or not, the comeback of vinyl is undeniable. Between chart-topping artists’ participation in Record Store Day and the tumblr-era explosion of the Crosley Voyager, vinyl records have been on a steady rise. Tunes record store in Hoboken has been in business since the 90s and shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. Read on to learn more about the vinyl comeback with expert input from Tunes owner Chip Huisler.
About Tunes
Chip Huisler, originally from Philadelphia and a longtime New Jersey resident, first ventured into the record-spinning business in college as a DJ. He originally joined his friend in the record store business in Marleton and Ocean City, eventually splitting as business partners in 2018. Today, he is the owner of Tunes record store in Hoboken, which will be celebrating its 30th anniversary this December. The record store began in 1995 in Hoboken being located at 313 Washington Street, the commercial space that is now Lululemon. At the time, it was divided into two small commercial units. Tunes moved down the street to its current location in 1999.
The store is buy/sell/trade, the owner described the acquisition process saying, “We’re always looking for new collections of CDs, DVDs, especially vinyl.” They often acquire large collections of records through estate sales after someone has passed away. Chip noted that “A lot of people like the idea of their Dad’s record collection going into a shop somewhere locally for the next listener to buy his Zeppelin records or whatever it might be.”
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Regarding the trade system, Chip said that career crate-diggers often come to the store to exchange some of their collection for new finds, “Sometimes people will have a collection with records they haven’t listened to in a while, so they bring in twenty records, get a trade amount which is bumped up twenty percent. So if they decide to trade, they can go shop for new records.”
Chip attributed the longevity of small, independent record stores like his to the love of music and other media that is present in all generations. “A lot of people are surprised that we’re still around and doing this. For a lot of people, when you get to a certain age, you stop going to record stores a lot. The way it always worked was you lose people to life when they get married or have kids, and they’re just not going to the record store as much as they used to. But there is always a new crop of 15-year-olds coming up who will take their place.”
The store also sells merchandise beyond vinyl albums and CDs; it also has box sets, cassettes, DVDs, posters of musicians and films, band tees, socks, and even pop-culture idol prayer candles. The posters come in all sizes, framed or unframed, of artists spanning genres and periods, including Lana Del Rey, Kurt Cobain, Chappel Roan, MJ Lenderman, The Rolling Stones, Doechii, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Ocean, and The Velvet Underground. There are even t-shirts sporting iconic album covers like The Smashing Pumpkins’ Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.
Online Sales
Chip credited Tunes’ survival of the pandemic to the record business’s early transition to online sales through eBay, Amazon, and its own website. “We always embraced selling online, we had our marketplaces set up already. I came up by myself while the store was closed and did all the online orders, and that kept us going.”
During the lockdowns, in which many of us took up new hobbies out of an abundance of solitude, Chip said that people began to curate their record collections, consuming more media than ever before. “When we reopened, there was a groundswell of people wanting to come back out to shops like ours. I think when they were locked down during the pandemic, they spent more time at home watching TV and listening to music because they weren’t going out to restaurants or bars. I’ve always thought that what we do is that we compete for the entertainment dollar, so in and around New York City, if people aren’t spending money at clubs, bars, or shows like they were prior to the pandemic, then some of that extra money was going towards building up a record collection.”
Record Stores’ Resurgence
“I think the most surprising thing to most people is that record stores are still even open and they’re still pressing new records.” Chip elaborated, saying that new copies of albums from bands like Led Zeppelin that may have been released in the 70s or 80s are still being pressed in 2025.
Record Store Day, an annual event created in 2007 by independently-owned record store owners to celebrate the culture of their stores, might also be aiding the long lifespan of these stores. For the event, the first of which took place on April 19th, 2008, artists like Taylor Swift will release limited editions of their albums and other merchandise only at indie record stores. Other celebrated participants of the day include Jesse “Boots Electric” Hughes, Ozzy Osbourne, Iggy Pop, Jack White, Dave Grohl, St. Vincent, Pearl Jam, and Brandi Carlisle. On the first-ever RSD, Metallica held a surprise meet-and-greet with fans at Rasputin Music in San Francisco. Tunes held its own special record-signing event in January 2025, unrelated to the holiday, where artist Teddy Swims visited the store to sign copies of his newest record, I’ve Tried Everything but Therapy (Part Two).
The return of physical media as complementary to streaming can be seen beyond the shelves of Tunes, with viral sensations like the Criterion Collection and Nardwuar, younger generations are embracing nostalgia for a movie or album you can hold in your hands or display on your shelf as a representation of your identity. Others might simply find it to be a superior experience compared to the sound quality of streaming. About the enhanced listener experience, Chip said, “It’s the tangible aspect of it, you might hear some of the cracks and pops. It’s the idea of taking a record, you pull the sleeve out, you’re more involved in the process of putting it on the turntable and dropping the needle. You’ve also got the artwork of the LPs, some of the new artists are going all out with a lot more inserts and liner notes.”
“For movies, I think there are just a lot of movies that aren’t available on streaming. You can get a DVD here for 50 cents, a dollar, or two dollars, so there’s value there. A lot of times, streaming services will have movies for a certain amount of time that aren’t necessarily permanent.”
For Chip and store employee Deanna, who mainly organizes the CD inventory, it was difficult to narrow down to just one favorite album, artist, or genre. Chip noted the first ever album he purchased, The Who’s The Kids are Alright. Honorable mentions of his other favorite musicians included Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen. Another all-timer album was Bob Dylan’s Blood on The Tracks. Deanna praised LCD Soundsystem’s Sound of Silver as a perfect, no-skip album.
Rare Pressings
Walking down the crate-lined aisles of the shop, Chip took out several highly-coveted, “rare” vinyl pressings, explaining what exactly makes them more valuable than other pressings. As one example, Chip displayed a copy of Whitney Houston’s 1987 album Whitney, in its original wrapping. Another standout album was a rare 2011 pressing of Fiona Apple’s Extraordinary Machine on sale for $100.
For superfans or “stans” of any given artist, the “rare” status of these pressings and the accompanying price tags can have solid explanations. For the case of the 2011 pressing of Extraordinary Machine, possible reasons might include the saga leading up to the 2005 album release. There were two different versions of the album, the first version featuring collaborator Jon Brion being leaked online and never released, and the album was remade with a different collaborator, Mike Elizondo. Pitchfork reviewed both versions, giving the version made in collaboration with Jon Brion a 7.8/10 rating and the released version a 6.2/10. Although the unreleased version remains more popular among fans and critics, according to one Reddit thread, the 2011 plain pressing is also preferred because it has much clearer sound than alternate pressings.
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Another Tom Waits record was pulled out of the sleeve to reveal unique etchings in the vinyl that newer pressings no longer have. Some records have unique coloring on the center label, which reveals the limited quantity or age of the record. “Being in the New York market, the one thing that’s nice is that if something’s got a value of $100 online, we can typically get around that amount in store as well. People here are willing to spend a fair price for something that’s out of print or rare.”
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