Vive Le Vinyl

Vinly sales are back on the increase! From John Lewis stocking LPs from Massive Attack and Nirvana, to bands like Radio Head, Arctic Monkeys and Liam Gallagher's Beady Eye all releasing on the almost forgotten format. This year's total sold has already exceeded 2010's total and sales are the highest they've been in over half a decade (nearly a quarter of a million sold in 2011) And it's not just Djs and the older generation who are purchasing the Vinyl. HMV have reported an increase in younger people buying records. Even if they don't own a record player.

The report comes over the weekend of the launch of Sound It Out, a documentry by Jeanie Finlay about the last record shop in Teeside. Based on the rather upsetting statistic that over the last five years, an independant record shop has closed every three days. More info here

TRAILER: SOUND IT OUT - A documentary by Jeanie Finlay from Jeanie Finlay on Vimeo.

We'll leave the last word to Peter Hook. ""As much as I hate to say it, I stole my first vinyl record at the age of 11. If the shop was still there I would go in with a fiver to make up for it. The song I stole was 'Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town'. Then I bought an old Dansette record player. Being able to play these wonderful records really set my musical occupation off.... I loved the sense of longing and anticipation before you got the album: examining how the sleeve looked and felt, then taking the record out of the sleeve – then, of course, the music! Putting it on the turntable, the delivery is so much more satisfying than a CD or MP3 has ever been, or ever will be."

Read more here