What can you say about the latest product in the electronics departments in 60 Fred Meyer stores? Well, here's something: Spin the black circle!

The newest piece of merchandise getting display space isn't from the MP3 age but from music's 33 1/3 rpm past. In a sign that vinyl is indeed "staging a comeback," as this week's issue of Rolling Stone reports, Fred Meyer has started to restock LP's and turntables.

Sure, plenty of indie stores in the Northwest have stayed true to what many hi-fi enthusiasts insist is the one true way to listen to music. The web site alt.Portland keeps a decent list of some of the city's vinyl haunts. (Of course, we would add Mississippi Records, an absolute gem of a shop, to the must-visit inventory).



But now that a big-dog department store/supermarket chain like Fred Meyer is stocking the left-for-dead LP, it appears that a bona fide resurrection is underway. Even officials at Kroger, Fred Meyer's parent company, were caught off guard.



"There's a funny little story behind this," said Melinda Merrill, a Fred Meyer spokeswoman. "We got back into vinyl by accident."

Earlier this spring, someone in charge of ordering CD's for Fred Meyer, intended to order a special edition compact disc and DVD set of R.E.M.'s new album "Accelerate." But the employee mistakenly clicked the "LP" option on the electronic order form.

Stacks of the R.E.M. vinyl showed up at the warehouse and were sent out to several stores without question. "We didn't catch the mistake until the records started showing up in the stores," Merrill said.

Puzzled by the boxes of vinyl, most managers sent them back. But a nostalgic few decided to give the retro-product a whirl. A handful of stores figured out ways to display the album, with its skinny 12 inch-by-12 inch packaging.

Twenty copies sold on the first day. After a week, 55 had sold.

Now Fred Meyer is "doing a test" in 60 stores, stocking 20 albums, ranging from a reissue of The Beatles' "Abbey Road" to the new Raconteurs album on premium 180-gram vinyl.

"They're selling really, really well," Merrill said. "The biggest seller is 'Abbey Road.'"

She added that Fred Meyer stores will likely roll out more vinyl releases and different models of turntables, including one with a computer port that allows vinyl-to-MP3 transfer, in coming months.

"I really don't know what to make of it," Merrill said.

This much is clear: It's once again safe to lug those old Who and Bob Marley records out of the basement without looking like a dinosaur to your kids. Play 'em if you've got 'em.

-- Joseph Rose; josephrose@news.oregonian.com