by Les Phipps – Business Development Manager

I think it’s fair to say that despite the recent huge rise in sales of vinyl, actually outselling digital downloads at one point, it has never really gone away. It’s been hiding away, biding its time, waiting for the right moment to come to the forefront of our consciousness and take its rightful place at the top of the tree as the chosen instrument for the delivery of our favourite music.

How many of us of a certain vintage still have most of our vinyl, hiding away in some forgotten storage space only to be brought out periodically when we have a tidy up? They’re then held and examined and cherished and then confined back to aforementioned storage space until the next clean up. We tell ourselves that it is part of our heritage or is it really a case of holding on to them as reminders and signposts to some time long ago when we were younger and life seemed so much simpler?

I think that this nostalgia we feel when we look at our old collections is one of the key reason for the resurgence in vinyl sales, coupled with the trend for all things vintage. Does it really sound so much better on vinyl? That’s a matter for debate which could take any conversation on this matter, late into the night. There is definitely a much more tactile experience to playing vinyl, which seems more rewarding than putting a fairly indestructible CD into a player and pressing play.

It’s not just us oldies that are causing the resurgence though, the younger generation are getting in on the act and buying vinyl in huge volumes too and this is driving the market. Ironically, new vinyl is much more expensive than CD but this does not seem to be a problem, at the moment…

I find it hugely ironic that when CD’s first came out, that many of us, including myself, starting buying CD’s of our favourite vinyl records, and now it is the other way round, with the next generation buying vinyl editions of their favourite CDs! This has given a new lease of life to second-hand vinyl records as people scour the market for their favourite records which in many cases are not available in vinyl as new issues.

As a seller of second-hand vinyl, I was initially surprised by how good the condition of the records are but also as to how well they still sound, now, when I come across a vinyl record that may be 40 years or more old, I am more surprised if it’s not in good condition.

I think vinyl is now here to stay as a viable medium for playing music and although the growth in the market of sales may slow, it will not cease to exist in the mainstream, as it almost nearly did from the nineties onward.

I kicked off my vinyl collection in the seventies after pooling my birthday money and pocket money to buy four albums:

Roxy Music – Roxy Music

Sheet Music – 10cc

Kimono My House – Sparks

Queen – Queen

And before you ask, yes I still have them but they are now on the shelf and out of storage!

Browse our full range of vinyl records here at World of Rare Books.