Could This Be The Year of Vinyl?

Humble ‘45 Striking a Chord with Music Aficionados.

Although it won;t see the commercial heights of 1979, where over 89 million of them were sold, artists and fans alike are returning to the 7” Single format, which is good news, as the BBC has found out today.

With sales of over a million discs, Roy Matthews and his pressing plant company, Portalspace, are seeing a continued demand for the vinyl pressed record that can hold two songs (one per side unless you are Monty Python and put two grooves on one side for a three sided record).

The single was once the gold standard of how you measured a performers popularity, and while recent decades have seen ideas like the concept album, the music video and the ‘greatest hits collection’ be the standard measure, the rise of the MP3 and the public’s fascination with single music tracks that they can play list themselves is surely one of the reasons that artists are returning to the 45rpm format.

Of course having something physical in your hand is one of the advantages of vinyl over the MP3, but the sensible band should be selling both the single, and a voucher to get a free download of the MP3.

And there is a little irony that as the 7” returns to the market, the place that everyone remembers going to buy the latest song, Woolworths, is no more.

(Hat tip to the BBC for The Revived 45).

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