Music

Now you can buy vinyl records in the supermarket

by Jeremy Mersereau

The ongoing vinyl record boom is showing no so signs of stopping, with sales in their tenth straight year of growth, increasing 29.8% last year in the U.S. alone. It seems like a new vinyl lover is minted every day, and the ones that already exist are going to new extremes to feed their format addiction.

Just in case you needed any more proof of vinyl’s resurging popularity, tried-and-true major label LPs are now being sold in British supermarket chains. Why not impulse buy a One Direction album on your way out, instead of a Mars bar? They’re both equally sugary and bad for you, but only one has “What a Feeling.”

UK supermarket giant Tesco now stocks LPs in 40 stores after a successful trial during summer 2015, and fellow chain Sainsbury’s has announced they will be following suit, with plans to stock records in 171 of their locations. Sainsbury’s Head of Music and Books, Pete Selby, cited the “enduring love for this format” as the reason for the initiative, exemplified in the UK’s year-over-year growth in record sales since 2007, and 1.3 million total vinyl sales in 2014, the highest since 1995.

It remains to be seen whether this nostalgia bubble will eventually pop, or continue growing until it engulfs us all like the floating orb in The Prisoner, but at least for now we can all get our cans of salted ham along with our 20th generation re-pressing of Purple Rain. In the words of the immortal Jello Biafra, “Give me convenience or give me death! Barring that, at least make it so I can get the latest Foo Fighters LP when I go to stock up on Double Stuf Oreos.”

[h/t Digital Music News]