Inside the cultural comeback of vinyl records in India

Imagine a jukebox at a bar, where customers can pick what they want to listen to. The only catch: They cannot pick just one song, but an album or an EP, something most belonging to the playlist-ridden generation may not have done. That’s how one can now listen to vinyl records in India—at vinyl bars that have gradually amassed a following in the last couple of years. 

The concept of vinyl bars can be traced back to Japanese vinyl listening rooms that were born when Tokyo first took to jazz in the  1920s. By the 1970s, these listening rooms turned into Jazz Kissas—or niche Japanese cafes offering whiskey, vinyl records, and high-end audio systems. Kissas are small, quiet spaces, where one person does it all, an experience that is an extension of the owner’s taste in music.  

The subculture of vinyl records in India

“There’s a worldwide resurgence of vinyl culture, including in India. Today, cafes in Korea and bars in Bangkok are designed around vinyls. London has been at the forefront due to the production quality, while Japanese-pressed records remain a collector’s item—complete with an extra track,” says Akhila Srinivas, 42, who established the vinyl bar Middle Room in Bengaluru in 2025. 

Vinyl records in India aren’t particularly a novelty. The vinyl culture in India seeped in in the 1950s continuing well into the 1980s, with records by composers like RD Burman and imported vinyls with disco tracks from abroad.

Till the mid-1990s Ragu Muthiah, 51, would visit shops in Chennai which ripped music from vinyl records to cassette tapes. Muthiah was spoilt for choice— these shops had 2,000 records for him to pick from and fill in songs that lasted 90 minutes (45 minutes each side). “The ecosystem changed when accessible mediums came into play,” says Muthiah, who opened Vinyl & Brews, a vinyl and coffee space in Chennai in 2024. The space has 300 to 500 records, some of which were passed down to Muthiah by his mother, including one signed by all the members of The Beatles. The rest are what Muthiah has been collecting for 15 years now, besides some contributions. 

Before coffee/cocktail establishments that double as vinyl bars highlighted vinyl records, spaces like The Revolver Club in Mumbai have made vinyl records more accessible to audiences since 2017. However, they’ve been organising listening sessions since 2014, the initial ones seeing two people showing up. A decade later, The Revolver Club has held listening sessions in collaborations with labels, including an Ed Sheeran listening session with Warner Bros. and a Tame Impala one with Sony. “This only adds to their legitimacy,” says Jude D’Souza, founder of The Revolver Club, who has been collecting records since he was 16 years old. 

Today, there’s an awareness and accessibility to vinyl records, which most Indians didn’t have because listening to vinyl records has always been considered as an expensive hobby. The cost of a vinyl record in India begins at about ₹3,000, besides a decent record player which costs upward of at least a lakh. 

While vinyl bars are increasing accessibility to vinyl records, it proves to be beneficial only if the acoustics of the space are carefully considered. “Most people will invest ₹1 crore on the interiors of a place but not the sound. People will spend ₹15,00,000 on a coffee machine but will crib about spending ₹10 lakh on the music system. It isn’t seen as a worthy investment, but this perception is changing now,” says D’Souza. 

Why F&B can help offset the investment that goes into vinyl bars

At Genre, a record bar and dining space in Delhi’s Defence Colony launched in 2023, two turntables cost ₹2,30,000, a mixer for 1 lakh, a record player on the ground floor at about ₹20,000 (only for display), and functional record players at around ₹2-3 lakh. The owners have also spent ₹10,00,000 on the sound for the two upper floors (spanning  800 square feet), while the ground floor has two speakers costing ₹75,000 each. 

Genre initially started by investing ₹7,00,000 for the sound system, and are putting in another ₹12-13 lakhs for the upgrade two years hence. This is besides carefully sourced vinyl records from across the world and via local sources like On The Jungle Floor in Bengaluru, costing ₹3,000-6,000 each. “Spaces today are happy to invest in the sound system because while renting out sound systems, the cost for a digital player and an analogue player is more or less the same,” explains Kunal Singh Chhabra, co-founder and director at Genre, who also heads programming and design. 

Srinivas, meanwhile, has spent ₹60,00,000-65,00,000 on the sound system at The Middle Room, besides the collection of 1,200 records brought in from Japan, Hong Kong, Berlin, and the US. 

“It’s difficult to get people in a room to only listen to music and make it financially sustainable, which a bar or a coffee shop helps with. Also, every F&B space wants to attach themselves to a culture, which makes the space more acceptable among a larger audience,” says Srinivas. 

Vinyl bars are also less intimidating and more experiential to discover analogue sound while eating, drinking, and hanging out. “It democratises a hobby that would otherwise stay niche. Besides, restaurants and bars have become cultural spaces. Bars are also the new living rooms, and vinyl has that living-room energy: intimate, warm, imperfect—in the best way,” says Rohan Mangalorkar, partner at Gaijin, a Mumbai-based restaurant, bar, and listening room, which has a vinyl-listening station, Gaijin Radio, and Danley sound system (which includes speakers, amplifiers, monitors and so forth) crafted to elevate analogue sound. They also host Off The Record nights on Wednesdays, organised to resemble a listening session. 

Playing vinyl records is also indicative of the thought and care that goes into the music being played in a space and the progression from one album to another, as opposed to just letting a playlist go on on loop. It is an attention to detail that is appreciated.  “With the advent of technology to treat a room acoustically, music can bring the space alive, so much so that it could feel like the musician is performing live,” adds Srinivas.

Do vinyls actually sound better? Or is it the supporting systems?

Goa-based musician Buland Shukla found himself at a loose end when band recordings and rehearsals went digital. It was at an all-analogue vinyl audio session in Mumbai, where the music sounded as if the musicians were playing live right next to him, that he found his groove. He opened For The Record, a vinyl-listening bar in Panjim in 2020 with the hope that people will connect to music the way he did, and would listen to music for the joy of it.

“Any good audio system depends on High Fidelity, which means being as honest to the source, and has nothing to do with being expensive,” says Shukla, who recalls listening to Louis Armstrong’s 1964 album Hello, Dolly!, and taking note of the spaces where Armstrong takes a breath, hearing the tapping sound as he plays the keys. “The silences between notes makes the song more enjoyable, which often get cut out in digital compressions that have a clinical, crisp edit. There’s no such option in analogue. When people say an analogue recording sounds warm, it’s due to the residual effects—that little extra information,” explains Shukla, also an architect who specialises in acoustics.

“Apart from that, there’s no longer a vast difference between a vinyl and an excellent quality digital rip. Even digital audio courses have that resolution. Today, music is produced digitally only, so it doesn’t make sense to convert it to analogue and press it,” explains Shukla.

“The auditory experience is influenced by various factors, including the recording process, mastering, pressing techniques, and playback equipment,” says Saurabh Shetty, 40, Mumbai-based restaurateur and owner of vinyl bar and listening room, Baroke. While Baroke was launched as a nightclub in 2012, it was relaunched as a vinyl bar in 2025. The space has a designated area where guests can access music on vinyl records through headphones. 

“When music is printed on wax and playing off a needle, the quality has a warmth that downloaded tracks—which compresses them at multiple decibel levels—don’t have. What’s also important is for the music to be supported by the right sound system, including amps. With Artificial Intelligence and technology, one can achieve all levels of sound as sitting in a studio with engineers, to an extent, but it will never equal an experience,” says Chhabra.

Though Genre has a Spotify playlist that is played when the space is relatively empty (4 pm to 7 pm), they also offer residencies to vinyl DJs to push the entire culture of vinyl spaces. According to Chhabra, who is also a DJ and has his own record label, All Star Sauce, vinyl records could change India’s DJ-ing landscape, and maybe even the music that is played at clubs. “Most commercial clubs in India are playing the same music—Afro beats, House, Techno—because it’s easier to mix, given that it’s always in the 4/4 count and between 120-128bpm, unlike genres like Hip-Hop,” explains Chhabra. Of course, it’s cheaper to DJ digitally, but like with any musical instrument, learning to DJ on vinyl records helps one understand the rhythm and sound, making it easier to replicate on digital platforms. 

It’s also expensive for an artist to press an album or an EP on a vinyl record, even though India got its first modern vinyl record-pressing plant, Samanvii Digimedia Art and Solutions, in Navi Mumbai only in 2024. “The cost could be negotiated down to pressing 100 copies for ₹1,50,000 lakh. While I can sell 150 copies of an album from a band like PeterCat Recording Co. every quarter, there’s no other Indian artist who has such great demand in the space currently,” says D’Souza. 

Singer-songwriter Maalavika Manoj (a.k.a. Mali) re-released her 2021 debut full-length Indie pop album, Caution to the Wind, on vinyl in 2022. Pradeep Kumar, a singer from Chennai, released his independent album Osai Kekkudho (recorded and mastered on analogue) on vinyl in 2025, and went on to get another lot pressed in a month as it got sold out. 

Vinyl records are aspirational, nostalgic, and make one slow down

In 2025, vinyl records are a symbol of aspiration, further aided by social media. “It’s a trend… and it works for the generations that care about aesthetics. Most people ask for photographs with the vinyl console, but a lot more are also invested in what’s playing. People have record players at home as well; it’s like brewing your own coffee at home. In Korea, Japan, and the US, people are switching to vinyls,” says Sahil Marwaha, co-founder, Genre. 

D’Souza also has advertising agencies borrowing turntables for shoots for the aspirational and ‘cool’ factor. “When people see a person listening to Peter Cat Recording Co. on a vinyl record, the perception is that the person has taste, and that they  is a person of culture, as opposed to the earlier times when the connotations around vinyl records were that it’s elitist or only meant for Retro music,” he says.

The rising purchasing power of today’s youth is yet another factor contributing to the popularity of vinyl records. Muthiah has 20-year-olds who ask him for advice to buy a player, which they are saving up for, having already bought a couple of records. And for this generation, it isn’t about nostalgia. “It is more about appreciating things from the past which need not have changed, or could have stayed around. Like flip phones, or ‘dumb’ phones, which are only used for calls, given how people are always on their smartphones today. Vinyls are something we gave up on for convenience, also depriving ourselves of album cover art and song lists,” says Muthiah. 

Listening to vinyl records could also be a way to slow down in the age of low attention spans and too many distractions. “Unlike the problem everyone faces with OTT platforms—where you struggle to find one thing to watch out of the 30,000—it’s easier to pick a vinyl record out of 300 good options. You’ll still be happy with your pick,” says Muthiah. 

The idea of novelty has changed too—from something that just has a high price tag to something that enables a few moments of focus and silence. “Vinyl isn’t posh by definition, but feels premium because of the ritual attached to it—picking the record, dropping the needle, listening to a full side. It’s analogue mindfulness, and in 2025, that’s honestly a superpower, at the risk of sounding nerdy. In this hyper-fast world, it is grounding too” says Mangalorkar.

Vinyl-listening sessions also help people learn patience as it involves listening to an entire album before moving onto the next one. “This ensures that the emotion and thought process of the artist’s sequencing comes through, which listeners miss out on when they stream songs,” says Muthiah. It also breaks away from the pattern of the algorithm that dictates people what music to listen to. 

Vinyl-listening sessions can also aid the foundation of a community of like-minded people via a collective appreciation for the art form. Srinivas started The Middle Room in order to bring back the rock-and-roll community she grew up with in Bengaluru in the 1990s and 2000s. And so they have Classic Rock Wednesdays with Metallica and Pink Floyd albums playing on vinyl records, with customers dressed in rock-and-roll T-shirts, nodding to the music.

D’Souza has seen people become close friends after listening sessions at The Revolver Club. In Goa, Shukla has come across people who exchange vinyl records just as one would exchange books at a reading club. These are listeners who appreciate listening to music without distractions. 

Is India really ready to listen? 

Getting people to listen to music in silence is one of the biggest challenges in India, where going out is almost always an occasion for social meet-ups and conversations. “India may not have a traditional ‘quiet listening’ culture, but we have a huge appreciation for stories, and vinyl is just storytelling through sound. If we can get even a few people to rediscover that kind of listening—intentional, curious, patient—we’ve done our job,” says Mangalorkar.

“It’s going to take a lot of getting used to and a certain amount of education too. We can’t be too pushy about it but we can certainly ask people to keep their phones on silent,” says Srinivas, who has had to turn down song requests, besides asking for the volume to be lowered. Instances such as these have made customers walk out on them, stating that vinyl-listening sessions aren’t for them, or that they aren’t into music. “But that also filters the crowd coming,” says Srinivas.

“Vinyl records will never be mainstream in India, even though they are becoming popular of late. But they are here to stay, despite AI and apps that add static to songs, because people associate static to the sound of a true analogue experience. The static that people hear is actually the dirt on the records!” concludes D’Souza.