As I stepped off the plane at Heathrow Airport, I spotted the U.K.’s most famous musicians: The Beatles, David Bowie and The Spice Girls. Murals of their smiling faces decorated the walls on the way to customs, welcoming me to London and reminding me of the city’s rich music history. Everyone knows about Abbey Road, but I planned to immerse myself in London’s record stores, mainly located in the newly-gentrified vinyl mecca of of Shoreditch.

In an era when even Urban Outfitters sells record players, buying vinyl has evidently become increasingly trendy. Vinyl sales in the United States increased 15% from 2017 to 2018, making it the 13th consecutive year of growth, according to Nielsen. In the U.K., sales hit their highest level in 2017 since 1991, according to the British Phonographic Industry.

Not only are young people buying original pressings secondhand, but countless bands from today’s age go to great lengths to get their new releases on vinyl. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why this is. Perhaps, in a generation so inundated with social media and streaming services, there is a desire to unplug bubbling beneath the surface.

When I arrived in the East End neighborhood of Shoreditch, I knew it would be my stomping ground for the week. My endearing guide, Karen, referred to the area as “hipsterville”: vintage markets and record shops lined the streets, and art embellished brick walls. To my surprise, Karen told me that just over 20 years ago, Shoreditch was known as a “slum” – somewhere no tourist would visit.

As I set out on my tour of five of the city’s best record stores according to Google, I noticed nearly all of them were eastward, in Shoreditch or Hackney. Is the record store – an entity that music lovers hold in the highest regard – now a sign of gentrification? Forgotten details flashed through my mind: across the street from those vintage and record shops, lived an Urban Outfitters. Down the road, a Chanel store boasted its luxury garments. All signs pointed to yes, and then I learned that Keira Knightley owns an apartment in Shoreditch. Hook, line, sinker.

But, record stores aren’t the cause of this gentrification. That title goes to corporations (à la Urban Outfitters and Chanel) that move in when local businesses can no longer pay rent. Instead, record stores must rely on a hip neighborhood and young people with money to spend to stay in business.

Tome Records in Hackney embodies this struggle. The store started in a DIY space in South Bermondsey, where owner Matt Estell thrived on interacting directly with the local punk scene. They moved to Hackney last year to be “more visible,” as Estell put it.

“[In South Bermondsey]... any customer we had, we had to drum up ourselves,” Estell said. “We would stay open late when there were gigs and it just got hard.”

Though moving has allowed Tome Records to turn a larger profit, Estell said they still try to make records accessible to all, selling used vinyl for as little as £2 and rarities for up to £200. In fact, I only purchased vinyl from Tome for this reason, snagging a Gene Loves Jezebel “Desire” single for £2 and The Libertines’ Up The Bracket for £15.

The effects of gentrification also manifest in Record Store Day, an annual international event started in 2008 to encourage customers to shop at independent record stores in exchange for exclusive releases and performances. Its effect has been massive; Nielsen reported a record-breaking 827,000 vinyl sold during the week of RSD in April 2019. This gives stores much-needed profit, but consequently constricts access to records due to expensive releases and huge lines that wrap around street corners. Often, these exclusives end up on eBay or Depop for an even heftier price, essentially defeating the original purpose of RSD.

Some stores, like Kingbee Records in Manchester, refuse to take part in the festivities, regarding every day as Record Store Day. Kingbee’s owner, Les Hare, said they participated in RSD for a few years, but stopped five years ago.

“The majority of the new customers we gained, we never saw again,” Hare said.

The silver lining: the resurgence of vinyl has allowed for more specialized record stores, such as Crypt of the Wizard in Hackney. Priding itself as London’s only heavy metal record store, it attracts heavy metal lovers as well as members of prolific bands such as Judas Priest. Owner Marcus Mustafa agrees that record stores have mainly moved east from Camden and Soho in the last 20 years, but thinks this has allowed for more individuality and specificity in the types of music stores can sell. In Mustafa’s view, record stores are even more necessary in the digital age.

“There’s a tactile thing that’s missing in digital. Silly as it sounds, you’re putting the needle on, so it’s active,” Mustafa said. “It’s not just the click of a button, and I think that’s why it’s important – because it breaks that instant gratification that seems to be messing up the world.”

To be sure, record store owners in Shoreditch and Hackney are getting little gratification out of gentrification; but they are profiting from it. Whether vinyl will continue to boom seems to be in the hands of the residents and visitors of “hipstervilles” worldwide, and if this year’s Record Store Day statistics are any indication – it’s not just a phase.

But maybe the return to vinyl is indicative of wider social change to come. The willingness of teens to unplug their cellphones and plug in a record player could mean they’re yearning for a more genuine world – not pristine and perfect like Instagram, but real and raw, like the scratches and crackles of an old record.