Scotti's Record Shop Keeps Vinyl Alive In Downtown Summit

SUMMIT, NJ — Since 1956, Scotti's Record Shop in downtown Summit has been selling vinyl records to its customers. Now 66 years later, the family business is still going strong — even with the advent of digital streaming.

Owner Gary Scotti said he took over the business from his father, Anthony, in 1981 and has been running it ever since.

After graduating from college with a marketing and accounting degree, Scotti said he decided to take over the record shop because of his love for the music business that he grew up around.

"I was a leader in archiving and preserving the vinyl format," Scotti told Patch.

Scotti was a big record collector growing up and has built up storage facilities, garages and basements full of records. In fact, some of the records in the store today are vintage albums that Scotti has collected over the years.

However, he said Scotti's buys record collections on a daily basis, which is where he gets the majority of his stock.

"Just in the last month we've been swamped with people selling us records and I'm struggling to get them all out in the store just because we are running out of room," Scotti said. "But if we have a dry spell, then we'll get to those boxes that I've stashed."

Over the years, as the way people listen to music has evolved, Scotti said the record store has faced its ups and downs.

Scotti's was booming at the height of the CD business, with Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys and Eminem records selling like wildfire. At the time, Scotti had five stores open in the area.

According to Retro Manufacturing, the compact disc was introduced in 1982 and was heralded as the first commercially available prerecorded digital audio format.

By 1985, sales of compact discs started to grow rapidly. Then in 1988, CD sales surpassed vinyl LPs, and by 1989 they outsold prerecorded music cassette tapes for the first time ever — thus becoming the most popular audio format.

But once streaming platforms like Napster and iTunes took over, Scotti said the business "turned on a dime."

"We had to condense and kept closing stores," Scotti said. "We started selling more knickknacks, T shirts, anything I could to make a buck. Water, coolers, candy ... we sold all kinds of stuff to try to stay in business, which worked somewhat."

But now in 2022, Scotti said the store is essentially back to what it looked like in the 70s, as vinyl records have made a resurgence.

"People were just discarding [vinyl records] but I thought it would come back, and I was fortunate that I was right," Scotti said. "It was a gamble, but it paid off."

Scotti said listening to music on vinyl is "the way it's supposed to be listened to" and that it produces a better sound quality. Although, he said it depends on what kind of equipment you're spinning your records on.

"Some people buy very inexpensive, suitcase-type turntables with really cheesy speakers, and it sort of sounds like listening to an old transistor ham radio," Scotti said. "Other people have $150,000 stereos with top end equipment and listening rooms. You can't compare the two."

Scotti said his equipment is somewhere in between. He uses a vintage system that can be hooked up to a stereo or even Bluetooth speakers.

Growing up in the 70s and 80s, Scotti said one of his favorite records is At Fillmore East by The Allman Brothers Band, which he believes is one of the best live records ever made. He is also a big Beatles fan.

He believes the resurgence of vinyl is a "push back against the digital movement in general" and that people got sick of listening to music on file.

"On top of a better sound quality, it's fun," Scotti said about listening to vinyl.

With vinyl, Scotti said people tend to listen to a whole record front to back — the way it was intended to be heard.

But Scotti said new records sell extremely quickly in his store, especially hip-hop records by artists like Kanye West, Mac Miller and Frank Ocean.

If a Kendrick Lamar album comes out, Scotti said he sells 20 to 30 of them right away. But because of supply chain issues, he may not be able to buy more for least six months.

"Queen's Greatest Hits, I think I was out of it from October until last week," Scotti said. "And that's just a great selling record for us. It's a staple like Kellogg's cornflakes in the supermarket."

During the height of the pandemic, Scotti said he actually saw a bump in sales because "people were home with nothing to do." The store was closed for three months, but Scotti continued to sell records online.

"People were making money if they weren't working [because] the government was giving them money," Scotti explained. "So everybody had money and they couldn't spend it ... I looked at it as people went to the liquor store, the food store and the record store."

After the height of COVID, Scotti's reopened to three days a week and is now back to six days a week.

While the record store has a lot of local customers, Scotti said he has regulars who will travel an hour or so to see him. He said New Jersey has a good record store scene and people often take road trips to visit the various shops.

Besides records and CDs, Scotti's also sells some vintage turntables, as well as new equipment. The store also has a significant collection of vintage band tees for sale.

You can check out their Instagram to see when the store has new record's in stock.

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