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England Loves Vinyl

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by Josh Ray on May 23 '06

Images - Union-Jack-Trunks-Note-Card-C11759707

England started this whole hi-fi thing and it makes sense the future of audio is taking place in the home of The Beatles, Shakespeare and Union Jack underwear. Yes, according to The Business Online, vinyl and MP3s are like peanut butter and jelly while CDs are, well, expired deli meat:

According to Rob Campkin, the head of Music at Virgin Megastores, vinyl is now outselling CDs when it comes to the latest records.
“Up to 70% of sales of new releases are vinyl. The fans of popular new rock bands like Arctic Monkeys and The Raconteurs prefer vinyl to CD,” said Campkin. “When the Raconteurs’ latest single was released, 80% of high-street sales were for seven-inch vinyl and only 20% were for CDs.”
“We are not just talking about vinyl singles but also about albums – the format is just continuing to grow,” said HMV spokesman Gennaro Castaldo.

Awesome, vinyl is kicking ass and taking names. The same thing appears to be happening among the influential hipsters of America as well -- MP3 downloads for the 'Pod and vinyl for the home collection. Makes sense, no? Excellent article with a lot more goods. Read it all.

Comments

My favorite quote: The music retailers do not believe that vinyl will ever entirely replace digital music formats. Instead, they predict that the same fans will often subscribe to both formats by downloading music for their MP3 players and PCs but will also wait for the vinyl release to add that to their permanent record collections. Which describes my collection pretty much, except that I see no point on having duplicates on both digital and vinyl (with some exceptions). But I can see where it can make sense to many others - MP3s for the car, the gym and the office, vinyl when you really want to indulge your ears :D

Posted by: beto | May 23, 2006 4:56 PM

I give these new, 20-something vinyl fans about three months before their turntables start collecting dust. It'll take about that long for them to realize they have to get off their butts three times when they only want to hear songs 1, 3 and 5 -- and that's just on Side A.

Posted by: Rods84 | May 23, 2006 5:22 PM

Yup, it's a fad. I got back into vinyl in a big way five years ago. After the zillionth time fiddling with the azimuth, I said screw it, sold all my albums to Amoeba and my Rega P-25 to some guy on Audiogon and never looked back. Vinyl is for people who want to make a hobby out of listening to music. I just want to listen to music.

Posted by: Jake | May 25, 2006 1:04 PM