Back To The Future

THE REISSUES INDUSTRY: special report by Chas De Whalley Part 3: It’s In The Grooves: The Survival Of Vinyl

Back in May this year, The Kinks’ Waterloo Sunset could be found at No 1 on the official Independent Top 10 singles chart. Only a couple of weeks earlier, Beggars Banquet announced it was going to strap The White Stripes’ next single to every copy of the NME and that they were going for a record-breaking first pressing of 125,000 units to meet a massive Day One demand.

So, your starter for 10. On your buzzers please. What’s the connection here? The answer is vinyl, of course. Both releases are on 7” vinyl and so provide living proof in these days of digital downloading that the favoured format of the 20th century is still very much a force to be reckoned with in today’s music market.

Not much of a force, perhaps since vinyl sales only accounted for something like 0.5% of singles and 0.3% of album sales in 2006. But it’s a vibrant one nonetheless, which keeps a lot of good people in work and satisfies fans and collectors alike. And after a period in the 1990s when, were it not for the dance boom, music on black plastic was very nearly read its last rites, the signs are that it is now playing a key role in the music’s future.

Why is that? Audiophile readers may say it’s because the sound quality is so superior and that more people are finally waking up to it. …

by Chas De Whalley
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