Record buyers get back in vinyl groove

Even the bigger record companies struggled to stay afloat.

In the 1990s, China Record Group Co, the biggest and oldest company of its kind in the country, sold about 10 million records a year, including pop, folk and classical music by Chinese singers and orchestras, according to Hou Jun, the company's vice-president.

In the early 2000s, annual sales fell to some 10,000 copies, with a huge change in the way music was consumed leading to many Chinese record companies folding.

In the late 1990s, China Record Group Co closed its last vinyl production line due to the declining market for physical records.

However, in 2018, when the company celebrated its 110th anniversary, it launched a project to revive vinyl output, importing a production line from Germany and setting up a factory in Shanghai.

Hou said: "We are optimistic about the market for physical records in China, although it will take time to recapture the glory years of the 1990s. Completion of the factory shows that the production of vinyl records in China, which started in Shanghai in the 1920s, is ready to take off again in the city."

In 2018, to mark the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening-up, China Record Group Co released Our New Era, a vinyl disc featuring 12 songs from 1978 to 2018 reflecting the significant changes in China during this period.

Last year, the company celebrated the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China by releasing a set of vinyl records, which included pop and folk songs, instrumental pieces and traditional Chinese opera.

Xiong Zhiyuan, founder and general manager of the Beijing company Zhongkehuijin Digital Technology, said the vinyl resurgence is the result of commercial rediscovery and appreciation of these discs among collectors and record stores.

The company repairs, safeguards and digitalizes a large number of century-old vinyl records.

For example, it has collected all the songs of Peking Opera master Mei Lanfang (1894-1961) from institutions and private collections at home and abroad, including from Mei Baojiu, Mei Lanfang's youngest son who was a prominent Peking opera singer.

Xiong said: "Life is improving all the time in China, and some listeners have realized that vinyl produces a better sound. Many people see it as a kind of tangible entertainment that is just as impressive as works of art."