BY eight o’clock tomorrow morning there will likely be about 150 people queuing up outside Love Music Glasgow, ready to take their pick from 500 limited releases being distributed for the tenth Record Store Day.
Shop owner Sandy McLean said that if it wasn’t for the success of Record Store Day over the last decade, and its role in what he calls the “great vinyl revival” his business would not have survived.
The event was launched in 2007 in the US to celebrate independent music shops who faced the huge threat of the emerging ecommerce market, which was beginning to dominate sales of compact discs (CD).
It quickly became a global success, a celebration of the very culture of buying music, and each year collectors eagerly await the limited releases distributed specifically to independent shops.
“Without Record Store Day I don’t think we’d be here,” said Mr McLean. “It came along at a very good time and it is a very big part of getting the vinyl revival going. It made people appreciate collectability and taught a new generation the excitement of coloured vinyl or a picture disc.”
Love Music is one of 200 shops across the UK officially involved with the event, but it is not just retailers which have benefitted. East Renfrewshire-based hi-fi business Linn has sold £8.5m worth of record players in the last three years.
The company’s managing director, Gilad Tiefenbrun, said this is the highest sales volume the company has ever seen from record players.
Mr Tiefenbrun’s father Ivor is celebrated around the world for the creation of the Linn Sondek LP12 turntable.
Having initially launched in 1973, Linn has already sold £250,000 worth of LP12 players in its current financial year.
And thanks to the recent upsurge in popularity of vinyl, turntables now account for more than 20 per cent of Linn’s global revenues, the highest level for 30 years.
According to figures from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), 3.2 million vinyl records were sold in the UK last year, up 53 per cent on 2015. It was the highest number in 25 years.
Back at Love Music, Mr McLean is getting preparing for what is comfortably the shop’s busiest day of the year.
He is expecting high interest in a 7” single from The Beatles, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Penny Lane / Strawberry Fields Forever double A side; and three new releases from David Bowie.
But Mr McLean said that while major record labels and their artists had embraced Record Store Day 75 per cent of the limited releases came from independent record labels.
When asked what was behind the vinyl revival, Mr McLean said: “MP3s have zero presence, literally. There’s no sexiness and you can’t look at someone’s MP3 collection. The whole physicality of vinyl has been tremendous at opening people’s eyes.”
Last year the first person in the Love Music Glasgow queue arrived at 6am on the Friday morning, a full 26 hours before the doors opened.
“We went through 1,500 carrier bags last year, which tells you how busy it is,” said Mr McLean. “There are five of us serving constantly until the queue goes down, which won’t be until around 2pm.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here