Record buyers get back in vinyl groove

In 2009, Ma founded his store on a 27-square-meter space at the 798 Art Zone, selling his collection.

The store now occupies a 300-square-meter site and there are three branches－in Shenyang, capital of Liaoning province, where Ma was born and raised, and also Blue Note Beijing and Blue Note Shanghai, two offshoots of the renowned Blue Note Jazz Club in New York.

"I was lucky that the store made a profit not long after it opened in 2009. I didn't plan to run it as a business, just as a hobby. I was glad to have like-minded people drop by to share music and stories with me," Ma said.

The store at the art zone now sells about 1,000 vinyl records a month and has built up a solid fan base.

"The first time I heard music on vinyl was when my mother played it at home on a turntable she bought for 30 yuan, which at the time was her month's salary. I learned to sing songs from those records," Ma, 36, said.

He remembers one of the songs from those discs－The Sea, My Hometown, released in 1982 on the soundtrack for the Chinese movie The Sea is Calling.

"In those days, vinyl records in China featured old folk songs, traditional Chinese opera, soundtracks from movies and television dramas, and patriotic songs," he added.

"But it's wrong to associate vinyl records with old, outdated music, as many contemporary pop stars, both from China and overseas, have released such records, which have attracted young fans."

Ma's store is a distributor for major overseas and domestic record companies, including Universal Music Group, Sony Music, Warner Music Group, China Record Group Co and Guangzhou Pacific Audio &Video Co.

On June 17, 2016, when rock band Radiohead from the United Kingdom released its ninth studio album A Moon Shaped Pool, record stores worldwide, including Ma's, hosted celebratory events.