This record shop’s releasing a ‘love letter’ to Delco vinyl with 90-plus tracks of locals-only sounds

Delaware County locals say the area has a specific sound, from its inhabitants’ famous accent to the bleating of the goats at Linvilla Orchards, to the sound of an Imperial Pizza box opening at 2 a.m. A neighborhood record shop is paying tribute to it all.

Greatest Hits Records & Books in Media is producing its first independent release: Sounds of Delco. The album features 92 short tracks (many less than a minute long) that the team behind it says capture the spirit of Delco.

“It’s definitely not a traditional music record,“ said Dom Glisson, one of the shopkeepers and a producer on the album. ”It’s more of an audio time capsule or a collection of small scenes. ... The goal was just to make something that feels very true to this place, without over-polishing it.”

Through a mix of field recordings — featuring coworkers out on the town with boom mics — and scripted studio productions, Sounds of Delco is reminiscent of vintage sound effect albums, records released between the 1950s and 1980s that offered audio snapshots in time.

Audio Fidelity Volume 1, for instance, released in 1960, had sounds of airplanes, a pinball machine, tap dancing, and a firetruck.

In contrast, Sounds of Delco will feature absolute bangers like “Guy Stuck Holding Door at Wawa” and “Eagles Fan Realizing Cris Collinsworth is the Commentator.” True to form, it’s being pressed and sold on a 140-gram standard black vinyl. For digital listeners, the album’s also being released across streaming platforms.

Glisson and shop manager Jesse Gennett curated the album alongside their Greatest Hits coworkers. They say the end product is all “if you know, you know” locals-only types of references. Together, the staff collected sounds and wrote out scripts.

Glisson’s favorite track is No. 47, “Delco Man Looks For His Vape (Vape’s Not Here, Man).” Another notable track is No. 25, “Eagles Win - Broad Street Celebration,” which involved intricate sound design work, with staff and friends recreating the sounds of joy, greased poles, and Birds chants.

The shop’s staff worked with Victor Sabatino, an engineer at Little Brother Audio in West Philly, to bring it all together.

Greatest Hits opened in 2024 and is an extension of Three Potato Four, a design studio and wholesale brand run by husband and wife Stuart Eli and Janet Morales since 2007. Their products — including licensed Snoopy bags and kitschy magnets — can be found in boutiques across the Philadelphia region and nationwide. For years, the team has made tchotchkes, dishware, notebooks, and buttons.

But they’ve never made a vinyl record. Glisson says that’s part of what made it so fun.

“It really started as a way to pay homage to Delco in a way that we knew would resonate with our customers.”

He added, “There’s just a very specific rhythm and personality to the place. We started making a list of those hyper-specific moments — the things that people from here instantly recognize but are hard to explain to anyone else. And that became the backbone of the record."

Sounds of Delco is available for preorder on vinyl through April 12. The first pressing is limited to 500 copies. Orders will ship the week of May 8. A digital version of the album will drop on May 1.