National Album Day announced to celebrate love for 70-year-old format
Music-lovers will be asked to nominate and share the album that has most inspired them for the first National Album Day, launched in the year of the 70th anniversary of the first LP.
The inaugural annual event, supported by BBC Music, will take place on 13 October and celebrate the UK’S love of the album.
The first recognised album in the UK, the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E Minor on the Columbia Masterworks label, was released in June 1948.
The day will mark the culmination of a week-long series of events across the country, celebrating both new and classic releases across all genres.
The event’s official broadcast partner, BBC Music, will air support for the initiative across BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 1Xtra, BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 6 Music stations, and also on BBC iplayer and BBC Four.
There will also be retail events, online listening parties and a social media campaign, which will invite people to nominate and share their most inspirational albums.
At 3:33pm on National Album Day, fans, shops, radio stations and public spaces will be invited to play their favourite album in full.
The format’s influence on music-lovers is said to be growing, as data from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) shows that 135 million albums, or their equivalent, were purchased or downloaded in 2017, an increase of 9.5 per cent on the previous year. The BPI estimates that five billion albums have been sold in the UK over the past 70 years.
Singer-songwriter Paloma Faith is one of the first artist ambassadors of National Album Day.
She said: “The way we engage with music may be changing, but for me the album remains the ultimate expression of the songwriter’s craft.”
James Stirling, head of content commissioning, BBC Music, said: “The role of the album has evolved over 70 years – through vinyl and beautiful artwork to current streaming consumption – yet the story behind a great album remains an important part of British culture.”