Vinyl...it's the future...part 369

The continuing (I Am The) resurrection of vinyl continues with news that Sainsbury's (yes...that Sainsbury's) is setting up a record label and global sales of vinyl records are expected to (ZZ) top $1billion this year. One pressing (Robert) plant in the Czech Republic that saw production (The) fall to just 350,000 discs in 1993 is pressing an incredible (String Band) 30 million records in 2017, okay so it's still a drop in the (Billy) Ocean compared to how things were in the 1980s but for a (DJ) format that has its (Misty in) roots in the 1880s it ain't too shabby (Road)...I'll stop with the puns now.

Apparently almost 50% of people these days don't play their purchases (!) but at least people are actually buying a physical thing which has to be good news, right? Regular readers will know how much of a personal bugbear the almost unlimited access to 'free' music is to me. It's all far too easy for it to become a background soundtrack to life rather than, for the 40 minutes or so that many albums last, the sole focus of life itself but there we go. Of course we'll never go back to the days when listening to music involved a bit of effort but let's hope that, at least once in while, we can set aside an hour or two to, in the words of that nice  Mr Timothy Leary, turn on, tune in and drop out.