Rise in vinyl shows no signs of slowing

Record shop owner Claire Howell, who runs Vinyl and Vintage in Wolverhampton city centre, said: "Sales are definitely getting stronger.

"I've had this shop for five years and I was based in the market for 20 years before that, and sales of vinyl have been going up all the time."

More than 3.2 million LPs were sold last year, according to latest figures published by the British Phonographic Industry, a rise of 53 per cent on 2015 and the highest annual total since 1991.

But Claire, whose shop is situated in Cleveland Street, said it was important to encourage younger customers to buy original rather than re-issued vinyl.

"The renewed interest in vinyl led the big stores, like HMV and Sainsbury's, to sell new vinyl records, which affected small independents like myself.

"I'm often cheaper but I can't sell in volume like they do so I might have to order in for a customer.

"We now sell both new and second-hand vinyl."

She criticised a well-known music magazine for claiming people were framing their vinyl discs and displaying them on the wall rather than playing them.

"It's been described as a fad but that's certainly not our experience," she said.

Claire, aged 47, who started her own collection of vinyl as a youngster after her older brother banned her from touching his own records, said the most popular vinyls were by indie bands of the past few decades – such as The Smiths, Stone Roses, Blur and Oasis – which have become big collectors items because fewer vinyl records were pressed in the 90s. A separate report published last week showed sales of vinyl records will break through the one billion US dollar mark (£820 million) for the first time this century.

It will be the seventh year on the bounce that sales of 12-inch records have recorded double-digit growth, pushing their share of the physical music market to 18 per cent.

Records sales also hit £2.5m last month compared with £2.1m for digital, with surge partly attributable to Christmas gift buying.

The interest in buying a physical format of music on vinyl has experienced a resurgence in the past 12 months. Vinyl also experienced eight consecutive years of growth, despite almost dying out around 2006.