Sainsbury’s To Start Selling Vinyl
BBC News has reported that Sainsbury’s have now decided to jump on the vinyl bandwagon and are to start flogging the black stuff in their supermarkets. On a recent visit to England I also noticed that Tesco are doing likewise, though given that the paltry number of discs was in a display in a corner and positioned so you could only access one side of the display, I didn’t get the impression that that particular store’s heart was really in it. So, is this good news for vinyl fans or not?
Now don’t get me wrong, we at Hifi Pig love the idea that vinyl is making a bit of a resurgence and I really do love to play my music on vinyl. It’s great to see younger people embracing the actual purchasing of music rather than turning to illegal downloads and the like. It’s also great to see that hifi manufacturers are being able to profit from this with the making of new, and often budget orientated turntables.
But what kind of albums are these non-specialist outlets going to be peddling? From my limited experience in the Tesco store I mentioned it’s going to be the classics…David Bowie (I bought a copy of Ziggy Stardust actually), Fleetwood Mac, ACDC… you get the picture. Now this is great for those of us looking to refresh our tired old record stock, but what about the new bands’ material?
I suppose the supermarkets know their markets well enough, but I can’t help thinking that I’d be much happier if they were stocking a wider variety of music. That said, if the big chains are highlighting that the format is out there and available, perhaps it will tempt even more to buy into the format and then finally seek out more exotic records in their independent record shops.
Record Store Day takes place in 16th April 2016.
