The 50-year-old Blackburn record store started with jukebox leftovers

Dixon Recycled Records in Blackburn has never given up on vinyl. The store, celebrating 50 years of operation this year, has been selling new and second-hand records since 1976.

The Eastern Melburnian spoke with manager Douglas Walsh, who joined DRR 39 years ago at the age of 21.

🗓️ Half a century ago: Dixon Recycled Records began in 1976 as a way for owner David Dixon to trade old 45-inch records from the 1950s and 1960s he would then use to stock his jukebox hire company.

• Since then, the business has opened and closed other locations, including Camberwell, Prahran, Dandenong and Heidelberg, while their secondary location in Northcote remains open.

• Dixon has remained the owner throughout the business’ lifetime, but is now semi-retired.

• The Blackburn warehouse stocks more than 100,000 products across records, CDs, cassettes, Blu-Ray, DVD and VHS.

🔐 A lifelong commitment: Walsh said Dixons had been a “very nice environment” to work over the years, with employees and regulars coming and going, always listening to new and old music.

• 🗣️ “I’ve always been a big music fan from my mid-teens onwards and a bit of a music junkie, buying up lots of records,” Walsh told the Eastern Melburnian.

📈 Constantly growing: Walsh said when he first started in the late 80s, CDs were just starting to increase in both popularity and accessibility.

• 🗣️ “We had three or four CDs on the counter that were in a little box – that was the extent of our CD collection, which obviously snowballed over time,” said Walsh.

🎼 Spin cycles: The major hit to the popularity of vinyl came in the early 90s, when CDs caught on and records began to fade off into the distance. That was until 2007, when the “vinyl revival” started to take hold.  

• 🗣️ “I don't think vinyl will ever go away,” Walsh told the Eastern Melburnian. “It receded for a while, but it's back quite strongly now. People like the process of putting it on and the sound you get from physically putting a needle on a record.”

📀 Discs not dead: Walsh said CDs were also experiencing a comeback, due to people leaving streaming services, poor sound quality and the overall security of access.

• 🗣️ ”Sometimes, you'll be listening to something and then the next day it won't be there,” said Walsh. “I think people are realising the sound quality is better on CDs than it is on a lot of streaming services. I think the death of CDs has definitely been over-publicised.”

📉 Less supply, higher prices? According to Walsh, the price of vinyl is likely to increase over the next six months due to a reduced supply in the byproducts from petroleum caused by the ongoing war in the Middle East.

• 🗣️ “Prices might go up unless the current petrol shortage is fixed soon, but we'll see what happens,” said Walsh.