What’s old is new again. Music lovers are moving away from new-age streaming services in favor of physical media such as vinyl and CDs. It’s a development Jim Corso welcomes dearly.
As the owner of Phidelity Records, he specializes in selling — and buying — everything from classic rock to jazz, funk to punk, and R&B to hip-hop music.
“Music brings back memories,” Corso observes. “You’re making memories while music is playing.”
Kids are embracing what’s “new” — yes, CDs to them are new — and they’re coming into the store because they want to collect something and own something tangible, he noted.
Kids are in their parents’ car, which has a CD player, and they’re intrigued.
And they’re tired of what the algorithms on social media suggest they listen to.
“I think it’s not as enjoyable listening to music [via streaming],” Corso said, “ … Actually sitting down and listening to a record that’s intended to be listened to, it’s [a different] feeling,” especially when you can read the liner notes, learn who played on a song, or see who wrote the song.
Corso added that when you listen to one side of a record for 20 minutes, and you’re absorbing yourself in the music, it’s a much more satisfying, three-dimensional experience.
“There’s always music everywhere. It’s a very important art form. … It just hits people differently,” he said.
Music lovers are moving away from new-age streaming services in favor of physical media such as vinyl and CDs, a development that Jim Corso, the owner of Phidelity Records, welcomes. “There’s always music everywhere,” he mused. “It’s a very important art form. … It just hits people differently.”
While vinyl sales have been on the rise for the last fifteen years or so, Corso noticed the biggest jump in physical media purchases during the pandemic. Because people couldn’t go anywhere, they spent money on music to listen to at home.
Corso’s own musical journey started in Philadelphia, where he grew up. He was studying business and management at Temple University when he started working for a record store chain in South Jersey. He spent 20 years running four stores, and then decided to open his own store when the original owners split their business.
That was eight years ago, when his eldest of two sons was starting kindergarten, and Corso and his wife, Jenine, agreed the flexibility of owning their own business was ideal for their growing family.
Now living in Collingswood, they were happy to find a location just one town over in Haddon Township.
Thus, Phidelity Records was born, though the name came from a bit of happenstance. Corso had a different name in mind (one which he can’t even recall) but his wife didn’t love it. So, after delaying the signing of his lease for a couple days, a sign at his son’s daycare center for Fidelity Alarm Company caught his eye: and Phidelity Records “came out of nowhere,” he recalled, laughing.
Corso runs the shop by himself, though he’s had help from his sister Wendy, his niece Natalie Vaughn, and a young woman named Courtney Fanelle, who used to be the family babysitter and who comes back to the store when she’s in town.
One of the most unique albums he has come across was a rare white vinyl promotional pressing of Led Zeppelin II, mastered by Robert Ludwig, which someone bought for “dumb money,” he laughed. “It was in a box of records in the store and I didn’t know it.”
Corso himself “listens to everything” depending on his mood or the season. His 2025 favorites include records by Wet Leg and Turnstile.
South Jersey definitely has a classic rock vibe, he observed, because a lot of kids listen to what their parents listened to. “And you have the songs you grew up with,” he said, jokingly, “Christmas is weird stuff. … At Christmastime you listen to Johnny Mathis but you wouldn’t listen to Johnny Mathis any other time of year.”
Corso doesn’t look for anything specific to buy and resell — among 33 1/3s and 45s, LPs and CDs, and select DVDs — and he’ll make every attempt to find a customer what they need, whether that means digging through boxes or placing a special order.
