GENNARO CASTALDO WATCH: Vinyl returns

Perhaps he's just got back from ski-ing or something, because Gennaro's back offering his opinions again, responding to Pete Tong's claim that vinyl has disappeared:

Gennaro Castaldo of retailer HMV says vinyl is no longer a mass-market product but it has a cool, credible appeal for youngsters, as well as those who grew up buying records.

"Assuming youngsters are into music I think most of them will have seen vinyl; they might not own any but they will have seen it," he says. "It's a format that a lot of indie bands use. The record companies are clever, they don't press loads of records just a few thousand, making them limited edition and collectors' items. I think there is an emotional attachment to vinyl. We now sell vinyl frames so people can put their record sleeves on the wall and make them art work.

"There is a misconception that young people drive music sales but it is the baby boomers who represent the backbone of music purchasing in the UK. They grew up with records and have the disposable income to buy them and do just that."

Aha... the record companies are being "clever" only pressing a few copies of vinyl records because that makes them rare, does it? It's not, then, that they're being practical and taking into account the lack of display space in the former record shops like HMV which means if they do offer vinyl records, they'd be harder to find than a guava in a branch of Kwik Save. (We were in an HMV just before Christmas and it took us about ten minutes to locate the CD racks, never mind the vinyl section.)

And we're not sure what to make of his baby boomer theory - if what happens in the music industry in the UK is dictated by people born between the end of the Second World War and the start of sexual intercourse in 1963, and they want vinyl rather than CDs, then... why can't you find vinyl in record stores?

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