Vinyl revival brings Monka Magic to Jakarta

As the major music industry is crumbling and record store chains nose-dive from rampant piracy and free online music, it might not be a good idea to open a record store -- in Jakarta, no less.  

Late last year, one of Indonesia’s best and biggest music retailers folded after more than 20 years of operating, citing slumping sales. Existing record store chains were forced to cut back on space and survive by selling lowest common denominator music from the likes of Celine Dion, Kenny G. and other elevator tune artists.

But some entrepreneurs were savvy enough to learn that the demise of the record industry could also be a boon for them, especially if selling music to a niche market, to people who seriously love music -- who treat it as more than just a distraction for the commute. People who love music and treat it as art, visually and aurally, are finding fulfillment in vinyl records.

In fact, there has never been a better time to sell vinyl records than now. As people grow tired of the tinny sounds of compact discs or the crappy sonic quality of MP3s, serious music lovers have rediscovered vinyl.

For the past couple of years, people have been turning back to vinyl records. In 2007, approximately 990,000 vinyl albums were sold, a 15.4 percent increase from 2006 when sales topped off at 858,000, according to Nielsen SoundScan. In 2008, vinyl sales topped 1.88 million units, the highest that Nielsen SoundScan has reported since 1991.

At the same time, the music industry was selling fewer and fewer CDs. In the United States, manufacturers shipped 942.5 million CDs in 2000, but CD shipment dropped 17.5 percent alone between 2006 and 2007 to 619.7 million units.

The people behind Monka Magic Vinyl believe that vinyl records hold the key to the future of the music retail business, a conviction that led them to set up their record store in Kemang, South Jakarta, which opened Dec. 3 last year.

“You may have terabytes of music on your hard drive but in ten years you’ll forget what you had. With vinyl records you have proof of your ownership, the proof of your love, something that you can hold in your hands,” Monka Magic’s co-founder Mayo Ramandho said recently.

And even before you hold that vinyl record in your hands, Monka Magic, occupying the former music section of the flagship Aksara bookstore in Kemang, offers the vibe of an old-school record store that crate-diggers would relish.

Records are stored in wooden bins or stacked against a wall that also serves as an eye-catching display, especially records with iconic cover art such as The Jesus and Mary Chain’s Psycho Candy, Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nations, Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures, Galaxie 500’s On Fire or Pavement’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain.

In the center of the store, the owner sets up a table for wooden bins to carry more contemporary records like Teen Dream by Beach House, Contra by Vampire Weekend, Gulag Orkestar by Beirut, This Is Happening by LCD Soundsystem and other Pitchfork-approved albums. If the store was a little bigger, and sold incense and lava lamps it would be perfect.

But how do you sell vinyl albums to music fans in Jakarta, especially the type of music preferred by the snobby critics from the Pitchfork or Stereogum webzines?

“We don’t offer just what we think is good. We listen to what people say, we pay attention to online conversation -- what’s hot in the chat rooms, that way we can always have a feel for what people like. We take orders from them,” co-founder Satrio Adi Utomo said, summing up the wisdom-of-the-crowd approach to marketing.

And as Monka Magic founders are learning, there are indeed a large number of people in Jakarta and other cities around the country who are into left-field music, tunes that are not broadcast on television or radio stations, or written about in newspapers. Their music circulates online through peer-to-peer media sharing, music so beloved that fans would not hesitate to get it on vinyl records.

It is to these people Monka Magic caters. In fact, the people at Monka Magic have plans up their sleeves to start what they termed a vinyl revival in Jakarta, a city which saw the last vinyl store fold nearly three decades ago.

Monka Magic Vinyl,

Jl. Kemang Raya 8B, South Jakarta