YOU SPIN ME RIGHT ROUND

April 21 is International Record Store Day. And before you laugh at the notion of vinyl being something to celebrate, it’s good to know this: according to market research company Nielsen, 14.32m records were sold worldwide last year. That is roughly the same number of sales as were made in the late 1980s, before the popularity of LPS hit the skids.

The medium is seriously on the up, and both new and old music is being issued on vinyl.

To mark the day, head to participating local bricks and mortar stores like Mr Vinyl in Joburg. Join the queue outside from 9 am to get your hands on limited edition releases of collectible albums — and/or those you just love anyway.

We asked Mr Vinyl himself, Bret Dugmore, for the seven tracks he’d take to a desert island. Not an easy task for a man who’s made music his life, but here they are: I’d imagine that I’d be rather anxious if I were suddenly stranded on a desert island and I’d need to go into “game mode” as fast as possible. This song, for all its progressive rock intricacies and melancholy, has seen me through some of the toughest moments of the past decade of my life. It’s a 12-minute masterpiece of genius that I’d dare say would make even 1970s Pink Floyd jealous. I’d want to hear this. Punk was given a really bad name by the Sex Pistols and others. It was considered a no-talent all-attitude genre of terrible songwriting and a fad that wouldn’t re-emerge until the skate punk of the 1990s.

There are serious exceptions to this rule, like this classic from The Clash, and the music that I immediately associate with when I think of my own identity is the punk that I learnt to love as a teenager.