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HMV for some reason thinks vinyl can go mainstream again

By | Published on Monday 8 June 2015

HMV

HMV is to step up its promotion of vinyl (and the fact that both vinyl and HMV are still going strong, thank you very much) with a special Father’s Day promotion that will see the chain selling limited pressings of classic albums.

This may side step any notion that the vinyl ‘revival’ is all to do with the young and the hip, but there is some logic to it.

HMV Music Manager John Hirst told Music Week: “Last year, outside of Christmas, Father’s Day week was our biggest week on vinyl. We’ve identified that week as an opportunity to really go for it and we wanted to distance ourselves from Record Store Day so that it didn’t seem like a response to not being a part of it. It is really about us raising awareness that we’ve got vinyl in our stores again, that we’re priced competitively and that the availability is good”.

Further dismissing the idea that the increased demand for vinyl has anything to do with young people, or the public at all for that matter, Hirst put it all firmly down to HMV. “In the last couple of years, due to encouragement from us, labels have started pressing more copies [on vinyl]”, he said. “They’ve made a lot more of their catalogue available and obviously they need an outlet for that”.

“The indies still do an incredible job with vinyl”, he added. “Their share reflects that. But what we do, which the indies don’t, is provide that consistently over 120 different locations all across the country. We’ve got to be the number one destination for vinyl on the high street. While the indies are catering to more specialist customers, we’re taking vinyl back to the masses”.

Ah, you almost had me there. Now I get that this is all a big joke. Oh John, you shouldn’t have pushed it so far as to claim that “the masses” would ever be interested in vinyl again. You almost had me though.



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