Middle-aged men are snapping up classic albums by Pink Floyd and Fleetwood Mac for their music collections, leaving hipsters out in the cold
The vinyl revival has been hard to miss. While sales of CDs continue to fall, the 12inch record appears to have come back from the dead.
The Official Charts company has even added a vinyl Top 40, taking in both singles and albums – something that would have been thought inconceivable a few years ago. In 2007, vinyl sales had slumped to 205,000 (0.1 per cent of UK album sales), but by 2014, this figure had jumped to 1.3million (1.5 per cent of UK album sales).
So who is responsible for this surge in sales? The recent annual Record Store Day event would have us believe it is mainly hipsters – kids born in the mid to late 1980s bred on downloading and streaming. For them, buying a record is a novelty, a kitsch item picked up while shopping for designer jeans in Urban Outfitters.
However, a scan of the top 20 albums in the chart’s earlier this month reveals it is packed with older heritage acts or classic rock albums being re-issued for the hundredth time. Classics by Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd andFleetwood Mac are racking up the weeks alongside a new best of Paul Simon. These are albums that have already sold in their millions and are being given the 180g treatment, remastered and repackaged. Even the “younger” bands hail from the 1990s with Blur’s comeback album The Magic Whip sitting at the top spot with their former Britpop adversary Noel Gallagher not far behind with his second solo album.
Not only does the top 20 seem predominantly blokey but heavily nostalgic, evidence that the vinyl revival is being driven by the older fans ditching CDs in favour of the format of their youth.
Read the full article here at the Telegraph
Got gaps in your vinyl revival collection? Look no further than here at eil.com for back catalogue, rare, original Vinyl LPs, 12″s and 7″s.
Be the first to comment