Parma’s The Current Year Creates A Community Hub Around Physical Media

The record store is one part of a growing community around music media collecting in the streaming age.

by Annie Nickoloff | Aug. 10, 2026 | 5:00 AM

Photographed by Ellen Gobeille

The Current Year owners Michael and Marie Stutz serve a growing community of collectors moving away from music streaming.

“People are realizing the scam of streaming,” Michael says. “Nobody wants to rent their environment.”

Starting with records when it opened in late 2020, The Current Year gradually branched out into other musical formats: cassettes, 8-track tapes, reel-to-reel tapes, zip drives and even floppy disks.

“We keep expanding,” says store co-owner Michael Stutz. “We keep adding as we get more into it.”

The physical media movement is not generation-specific; Stutz notes that teens and older adults alike often discuss analog tech swaps like flip phones. But the modern trend really started with the record revival two decades ago. Recording Industry Association of America data shows that vinyl sales have grown for 19 consecutive years in the United States.

Shopping opportunities have grown, too; the Current Year is just one part of a vibrant local record store scene.

“A lot of cities have a lot of stores,” Michael says, “but I feel like Cleveland has more record stores on average than most other cities of its size.”

The Stutzes collect physical media and avoid streaming services in their daily lives. It’s more than just an entertainment preference; Michael points to political forces that influence the decision to move away from streaming subscription models and modern technology’s endless upgrade cycles.

“People are really into ownership, because it feels like there's sort of this overarching trend of some forces wanting people to just be quiet worker drones, and just have nothing,” Michael says. “It's a very strange thing, because it's not like there's some villain that we can all point to and name a name or something; it's not even that. It's just in the air, people feel it, and I think owning records and owning books and movies and stuff — it's giving people a lot of solace and a lot of comfort.”

Annie Nickoloff

Annie Nickoloff is the senior editor of Cleveland Magazine. She has written for a variety of publications, including The Plain Dealer, Alternative Press Magazine, Belt Magazine, USA Today and Paste Magazine. She hosts a weekly indie radio show called Sunny Day on WRUW FM 91.1 Cleveland and enjoys frequenting Cleveland's music venues, hiking trails and pinball arcades.