UK | Celebrating music, Britain to have ‘National Album Day’: Britain is to have its first ever “National Album Day” this autumn, an event organizers hope music fans will celebrate annually to mark their appreciation of the format. Music lovers around the country will honor singers, songwriters, producers and sleeve designers on Oct. 13 and various events, organized by industry players and BBC Music, celebrating “all aspects of the UK’s love of the album” will be held in the run-up to the day. Fans are also being asked to play their favorite album in full that afternoon. “Streaming may be broadening our ability to access and discover music,” Geoff Taylor, Chief Executive of the British Phonographic Industry, said in a statement. “But the concept of the album as a body of work that expresses a narrative or an artist’s creative vision at a given moment, remains as relevant and inspiring as ever.”
UK | October “National Album Day” launched by record industry to revive format: The record industry have launched a ‘National Album Day’ in bid to revive the format among younger fans. This October 13 will mark the highlight of a week-long celebration of the UK’s love for musical albums as the album celebrates its 70th anniversary. Demand for albums remains strong in the UK. Last year, 135million albums were either purchased, downloaded or streamed; a rise of 9.5 per cent on the previous year. BPI estimated that a total of 5 billion albums were sold in the UK since the format’s advent in 1948. A study by the Entertainment Retailers Association in May showed nearly 60 per cent of respondents had listened to an album in full in the month prior to the online survey.
San Jose, CA | Spinning vinyl pays off for San Jose’s Needle to the Groove: What goes around comes around, right? Just like a record. And, as it turns out, just like the popularity of the vinyl LPs that were thought to be obsolete a generation ago. Needle to the Groove in San Jose is one of several retailers — including On the Corner Music in Campbell — that has been a treasure trove for vinyl hounds, and its success has paid off nicely. After four years in a fairly cramped downtown shop, Needle to the Groove has expanded to a 2,000 square foot space just a few doors away at 424 E. Santa Clara St. The new location allows Needle to the Groove to display more than twice as many vinyl records…
Sutton Coldfield, UK | New Boldmere record shop is selling the Sex Pistols’ rarest single for £15,000. How the Sex Pistols’ God Save The Queen single became as valuable as a crown jewel. One of the world’s rarest singles is on sale in Birmingham – with a whopping £15,000 price tag. God Save The Queen was released by the Sex Pistols in 1977. Now the original version is worth almost as much as a crown jewel. Most of the original pressings of the song were destroyed by A&M in March 1977. EMI had already ditched the Sex Pistols in January, and A&M then fell out with the band days after signing them. The controversial single was later released in May by Virgin and hit No.2 in the charts even though it was banned from the airwaves by the BBC. An unplayed mint condition copy of the original A&M pressing has now been bought by Pete Bonner, owner of Psychotron Records in Boldmere, Sutton Coldfield.
UK | Wolf Alice and James Bay want plastic wrap ditched on records: However many records you’ve got, there’s still something exciting about tearing off the cellophane cover on a new album. But there are demands for that cellophane cover to be scrapped.Along with things like plastic straws, shopping bags and water bottles, there are growing calls to get rid of single-use plastic. And that fight is now coming to the music industry and its first target is shrink wrapping. Anna Harvey is Head of Vinyl at Silverscreen Records. They released Blue Planet 2 on vinyl and made the decision not to shrink wrap it. Not a bad idea since the show highlighted plastic waste. “Instead, we used a paper band to hold the vinyl and its sleeve together,” she tells Newsbeat.
Minneapolis, MN | Best Buy relegating CDs to bargain bins as sales dwindle: The beleaguered compact disc, made increasingly obsolete in the age of streaming, now has found itself in the bargain bin. Richfield-based Best Buy, once one of the bigger music retailers with several aisles of CDs, now has a time capsule to another era jumbled up inside the $5.99 bargain bin. Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Who, Cat Stevens, Billy Ocean, Lionel Richie — all a nod to the aging demographics of those who still buy them. “Does anybody remember the last time they bought a CD?” Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly asked rhetorically earlier this year in confirming the retailer is “de-emphasizing” the category.
VE | Music for medicine, an exchange of albums for medication in Venezuela: Eight out of 10 pharmaceuticals are lacking in Venezuela. Under the scheme of this campaign, which started on Saturday in Caracas, if a donor provides a painkiller they get one point while an antibiotic is worth three and an expensive medication is five. Donors can choose from hundreds of compact discs and vinyl records of any genre. Music for Medicine, a non-profit project campaign urging people to donate medication in exchange for musical albums, kicked off in Caracas on Saturday, aiming to alleviate the consequences of the medicine shortage and the overall healthcare crisis affecting Venezuelans. The project was launched by a group of human rights activists from Venezuelan Education-Action Program on Human Rights (PROVEA) and Redes Ayuda, as well as the Lugar Común bookshop, in association with various music sellers and collectors.
