Vinyl is back for good and that’s exciting. Don’t let the greed of big labels ruin it
At first, it looked like it might be a momentary revolt against the digital future that would inevitably fade away: a rebellion based on plastic, cardboard and century-old technology that was simply too quaint to last. But after at least 15 years of growth, the renaissance of oldfashioned vinyl still seems to be alive and well. This Christmas was surely a case in point: thousands of us will have unwrapped records, the hardware that plays them, or both.
In 2022, 5.5m vinyl records were bought in the UK, the largest volume of sales since 1990. Over the first nine months of last year, British vinyl sales increased 13% year on year. The retail chain HMV has just returned to its famous premises on Oxford Street in central London: ceremonially opened in 1921 by Sir Edward Elgar, recently occupied by one of those irksome fauxAmerican sweet shops, but now back in business as an updated version of its former self. It sells a lot more than records, but has set aside space for a mountain of vinyl, marketed “to a younger customer base” rather than the stereotype of nostalgic dads with money to burn.
Just to be clear: the seemingly endless growth of Spotify – not to mention TikTok and YouTube – now reflects the dominant way that most people listen to music, and the pre-eminence of those platforms inevitably dwarfs the revived interest in old-fashioned records. One of the most curious features of vinyl’s rebirth is that many albums are bought by people who don’t even own record-players; the point, it seems, is to play the music on your phone while swooning over the sleeve, as if the record is an objet d’art. Still, a growing number of people are clearly wary of the distracted, frantic, random kind of music experience ushered in by the digital age, and see vinyl as a very satisfactory alternative. I speak as someone whose habit was revived around 11 years ago – making a cup of tea and putting a record on is now a daily ritual that seems almost medicinal.
The industry that provides such pleasures, unfortunately, is in a mess. Back in 2015, as the vinyl renaissance gained pace, the Guardian sent me to one of Europe’s biggest vinyl-pressing plants – in the former East Germany, where Communist-era machinery had been refurbished, and ex-citizens of the GDR put back to work. It was quite something to see: a business founded on old-fashioned technology, precision and expertise, which was now trusted to press records by such icons as Kraftwerk and the Beatles. But the factory’s revival, I was told, was reaching the outer limits: no one anywhere in the world had built a new vinyl-pressing machine since the 1980s, so production bottlenecks were becoming an inbuilt part of the business, and any meaningful expansion seemed out of the question.
Now, new presses have finally been made, factories have grown, and vinylproducing startups have opened, all over the world. The problem is, as the music industry stokes demand for records (witness, for example, the current ubiquity of hyped-up, limitededition coloured pressings), the total capacity of vinyl manufacturers still lags far behind. That has played its part in pushing up costs, and hardening up a hierarchy that tends to put the kind of independent record labels that first sparked the vinyl revival at the back of the queue.
Just before Christmas, I had a long and fascinating conversation with
Jack Clothier, the co-founder of independent British label Alcopop! Records, whose speciality is the kind of roughedged, spirited alt-rock that has long defined itself against the mainstream. He gets his records pressed in the Czech Republic. Between 2019 and this year, he reckons, the cost has gone up by 85%. Worse still, major labels that come to pressing plants with vast orders for records by such modern titans as Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift – whose 2022 album Midnights sold nearly a million vinyl copies in the US alone – often push small fry like him out of the way, which has led to lead times of up to nine months.
Rock and pop music, older readers may recall, is meant to be about quick turnarounds and the shock of the new. “There needs to be a bit of passion with vinyl, because that’s what makes it such a brilliant format,” he told me. “But when you’ve got millions of records being sent through, it’s like, ‘We don’t have time for your little order, because it doesn’t bring the revenue in.’ When we lose that, vinyl becomes less exciting. It starts to lose its charm.”
Major labels have another case to answer. Notwithstanding rises in production costs, albums put out by the big corporates are often priced about £5 higher than many records on independent labels, and reissued classics sometimes edge close to £40, or even more. If you want a good example of the luxury economics at work, try this: with the help of Sony Music, the former Outkast rapper André 3000 has just put out a new album of instrumental music, on which he showcases the results of having spent some of the past five years learning the flute. According to the accompanying promotional blurb, it is the work of “an auteur whose work in music, film, fine arts and fashion continues to influence the cultural landscape on a global scale”. This seems to be partly intended as a justification of how much the triple-vinyl edition is likely to set you back when it is released later this month: depending on which seller you choose, somewhere between £85 and £100.
People who run record shops worry that all this sends out the message that vinyl is an impossibly expensive product, of no interest to the younger music devotees who the music industry will, sooner or later, need to keep the current revival going. But the most pernicious effect of all this profiteering is that it warps and distorts the fond, loving culture that surrounds vinyl records, and leaves people feeling they have been played, something that rather brings to mind a catchphrase beloved of the market traders of the West Midlands: “Never make a mug of your punter.”
The mainstream music business ought to be opening its own factories, and vigilantly keeping its prices down. What it seems to be doing is wringing out as much cash as it can, pushing small companies out of the way, and threatening the miraculous growth of a format that endears people to music far more deeply than anything digital. Nostalgic record-buyers of a certain age will recognise the basic story: of an industry that has given the world no end of happiness but is as addicted as ever to short-term windfalls and a grim cycle of boom and bust – which, appropriately enough, goes round and round again.
John Harris is a Guardian columnist
the bounds of the orthodox was valuable in suggesting a reassessment of established views. It is an approach we should cherish. • Kenan Malik is an Observer columnist Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk
sands of silk carnations strewn across the stage of Sadler’s Wells, will draw ballet fans to the first revival of Pina Bausch’s Nelken (Carnations) since 2005 . Opening on Valentine’s Day, it features the now-fabled “Nelken line” dance motif, illustrating the passing seasons. The latest generation of 20 of the late Bausch’s Tanztheater Wuppertal dancers will hop over, kiss and squash the flowers once again.
Bradford receives an early taste of national attention this summer, as it gears up for 2025’s UK City of Culture status. The Bradford Live venue is unveiled shortly after the National Science & Media Museum is due to reopen its doors, following £6m of work. The city’s literature festival gets in first though, celebrating a 10th anniversary at the end of June.
And for those not yet sick of Barbie pink, London’s Design Museum salutes the doll’s 65th birthday with a dedicated show running from early July. More conventional museum fare will be widely available from May when Britain’s historic repository of visual art, the National Gallery, marks its 200th anniversary. The gallery is linking up with 12 other sites – including museums in Liverpool, Newcastle, Cambridge and Brighton – to display key pieces, for free.
January also offers a partial answer to all the mystery surrounding the new Matthew Vaughn thriller, Argylle. The publication date of the book the film is supposedly based upon, written by an “Elly Conway” (last heard of as a fictional character in TV’s Neighbours), is 9 January. Vaughn’s big budget film, which stars Henry Cavill and Dua Lipa, is released in February.
Technology by John Naughton
If 2023 was the year of ChatGPT, then 2024 will be the year when the world recovers from the shock of generative AI and takes stock of what the technology offers. At the moment, the Gartner Hype Cycle – a visualisation of the social use of technologies – has AI right at the “Peak of Inflated Expectations”, poised to begin the downward slide into the “Trough of Disillusionment” with a predicted time to productive deployment of five to 10 years. So we’re embarking on a decade of experimentation and deployment. Our future, says Steven Levy, Wired’seditor at large, “will be characterised by a tension between copilot (AI as collaborator) and autopilot (humans as sidekick to AI). The latter is more efficient and cheaper in a narrow labour economics sense but troublesome in all sorts of ways.”
Sales of electric vehicles (EVs) will increase, further outpacing countries’ national charging infrastructures. And Europe will find itself locked into a toxic loop as Chinese-built EVs flood in. This is happening because European governments subsidise the purchase of EVs, while China subsidises their production. Since Chinese domestic demand for the cars has slumped, they are being effectively dumped on Europe. This won’t end well.
Twitter/X will continue its self-imposed decline as its owner thrashes around trying to staunch the bleeding. No matter how decrepit the network becomes, though people will use it because of the absence of an alternative that isn’t owned by Mark Zuckerberg.
With its legislative triad of the Digital Services Act, Digital Markets Act and (forthcoming) AI Act, the EU will continue to be the only game in town for tech regulation. Signs of its effectiveness are beginning to surface – for example with Meta, Facebook’s owner, offering customers in Europe ad-free subscriptions. Google’s competition problems in the US will go on. Self-driving cars will continue to be – like artificial general intelligence and nuclear fusion – “some decades off”.
Foreign affairs by Simon Tisdall
Suspense over the outcome of the US presidential election in November will increasingly command American domestic and international attention. Joe Biden plans to ignore many in his own party and seek a second term despite his age (81) and low approval ratings. The Democrats’ nightmare: Biden becomes unwell or suffers some disastrous embarrassment when it’s too late to replace him. Few believe vicepresident Kamala Harris could step into his shoes. Donald Trump, who will be 78 in November, will win the Republican nomination. But his overall national approval rating is as negative as Biden’s, at roughly -15%. It’s also possible Trump will be in jail come the election. Prediction: Biden wins the popular vote, Trump the electoral college – which means Trump gets a second term.
President Xi Jinping, is now the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong. The downside, for him, is that when things go wrong, he cannot escape blame. And things are going wrong. The economy is struggling, unemployment among young people is up, there’s a debt, investment and property crisis, and the population is ageing. Xi’s expansionist policies, predatory trade practices, disregard for international law, and human rights abuses have alienated neighbours, provoking western pushback. Taiwan, which Xi insists is part of China, worries he may attack to distract attention from domestic problems. Purges of top officials have added to a sense of instability. Prediction: Xi is stripped of some or all of his powers in an internal Communist party revolt.
At a time when democracy is everywhere under attack, 2024, paradoxically, will see record numbers of elections – possibly in more than 50 countries, depending on dates and how defined. Sadly, a lot of these polls will not be freely contested. Results can be predicted in advance. Vladimir Putin’s reelection as Russia’s president in March is not in doubt. In other countries, too, the cards are stacked against opponents to such a degree that incumbents can hardly fail to win. Examples are India, Iran, Belarus and Venezuela. Genuinely open contests are expected in the UK, Taiwan, across the EU – including for the European parliament in June – and in the US. Holding elections in the midst of a war will be a big test for Ukraine’s democracy. Prediction: this global vote-fest will see further advances for authoritarian and populist-nationalist far right leaders.
Finance by Rupert Jones
The cost of living crisis will continue to dominate the headlines – although economists will be watching to see if the signs that pressure is easing develop into something more substantial.
Just when many people’s finances will be feeling especially fragile as a result of festive spending, households will begin the new year with a typical 5% increase in energy bills. That’s because the regulator, Ofgem, raised the energy price cap to £1,928 a year for a typical household using gas and electricity and paying by direct debit.
The cap is for 1 January to 31 March, but the energy consultancy Cornwall Insight predicts it will then fall back: to £1,816 from 1 April, and then to £1,793 from the start of July.
Another bit of potential bad news concerns food prices. New border checks on food and fresh produce from the EU that begin on 31 January will add costs to imported ingredients and could be a big inflationary factor, bodies such as the British Sandwich & Food to Go Association have warned.
But an expansion of free childcare schemes starting from April should, in theory, relieve some pressure on family finances. From that month, eligible working parents of two-year-olds will get 15 hours a week of taxpayerfunded childcare for 38 weeks of the year – the first part of a phased expansion.
House prices and mortgages will continue to be a national obsession. The Office for Budget Responsibility has predicted house prices will fall by 4.7% in 2024, which would please firsttime buyers, though maybe not homeowners. However, the housing market has form when it comes to defying a predicted downturn or crash. And with Halifax and Nationwide reporting house prices rose in both October and November, you wouldn’t bet against the market ending the year in positive territory.
The cost of new fixed-rate mortgages has been coming down, and Nicholas Mendes at mortgage broker John Charcol predicts there will be further cuts in 2024. “Five-year fixed rates will be the first to see a sub-4% rate, with two- and three-year fixed rates then breaking the 4.5% benchmark,” he added.
Meanwhile, analysts will be waiting to find out if Taylor Swift can sprinkle her stardust on the UK economy when her tour arrives in June. Earlier this year the market research firm QuestionPro estimated that her Eras Tour could generate $5bn (£3.9bn) for the US economy – more than the gross domestic product of 50 countries. “The Taylor Swift economy” is not just folklore: the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia confirmed her three concerts in the city in May had boosted tourism revenue.
Swift is doing 15 shows in Great Britain, in front of almost 1.2 million people. The gigs should unleash a wave of spending on merchandise, food and drink, travel, accommodation and new outfits. Lighthouse, a travel and hospitality industry data specialist, said there were clear indications the singer would positively affect the cities where she is playing.
Sport by Sean Ingle
Sport will be dominated by two mega events: the Olympic Games and the men’s football European Championships. Britain’s biggest stars should take centre stage in both.
Half a million people will attend the opening ceremony of the Paris Games on 26 July, which will see a flotilla of 160 boats carrying athletes travelling along nearly four miles of the Seine. Expect spectacular theatre, dance and circus performances before the Games are officially opened at the Trocadéro.
That should set the stage for the rest of the Olympics, which organisers hope will be a spectacular reboot after corruption and then Covid marred the Rio and Tokyo Games.
Rather than build new venues, Paris’s famous sites will take centre stage. Skateboarding, breaking and 3x3 basketball will be held at Place de la Concorde, equestrian at the Palace of Versailles. Beach volleyball will be in front of the Eiffel Tower.
It means this will be the first true Olympics for the Insta generation, and once again Team GB should be near the top of the medal table. Expect Adam Peaty, Tom Daley and Katarina Johnson-Thompson to return – and new stars, such as super-heavyweight boxer Delicious Orie and 21-year-old cyclist Emma Finucane, to emerge.
Before the Olympics, England’s male footballers will hope to match the women’s team success in 2022 by winning the Euro 2024. A kind draw has given Gareth Southgate’s side every chance – with bookies making them joint favourites alongside France, although Scotland are also through, with Wales hoping for a play-off win to qualify. If England do go far, don’t be surprised if Jude Bellingham, the 20-yearold Real Madrid midfielder, wins the 2024 BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year.
Meanwhile, after women’s sport delivered record audiences in football, basketball, golf, tennis and cricket in 2023, the global sports and culture company IMG is predicting that “will convert to tangible dollars” in 2024. “There is already data to suggest that fans of women’s sports will… support the brands that commit to it,” IMG’s recent report states. “[Women’s sport sponsor] Michelob Ultra found fans of women’s sport are 30% more likely to engage with its brand than fans of men’s sports.”
The report also predicts the rise of the mega influencer will grow even further after Cristiano Ronaldo joined the Saudi Pro League and Lionel Messi went to Major League Soccer.
Food by Tony Naylor
Restaurant land remains volatile. Costs are high, staff in short supply, spending was down for long periods last year. But hospitality will adapt, survive, in many cases thrive. It is resilient, with escapism very much on the menu in 2024.
The new Leeds branch of Pizza Pilgrims features a pink flamingo pedalo that dispenses soft-serve ice-creams. Diners can sit in it and use pedal power to play an old gramophone. That is where we are now. Goodbye leather aprons, hand-thrown earthenware and artisan minimalism. Hello eye-popping interiors, DJs, live music, theatrical tableside service, chefs on display in counter kitchens and endless collaborations, as restaurants seek an experiential edge over their rivals.
Big food hall openings, such as the forthcoming Boxpark Liverpool, will continue for similar reasons of entertainment and variety, as traditional meal times and formats change. Wine bars serving snack-y, quality small plates will also embed.
That is, if you’re still drinking. A recent Olive magazine survey of Gen Z habits found more 16-to-26-year-olds drink bubble tea weekly than alcohol. Alcohol-free options will grow, but also creativity in lower-strength cocktails and, after recent alcohol duty changes, beers under 3.5% ABV. Carlsberg has already reformulated its flagship pils for UK drinkers at 3.4%.
Need something stronger? Orange wine, whiskey and spicy, chilli-mined cocktails are trending. You may think heat has peaked. But hot sauce sales are still surging, up 94% last year at specialist Hop, Burns & Black.
With excitement around veganism cooling, flexitarianism is back on the agenda. Though focusing on veg-led dishes is a win-win for restaurants in managing ingredient costs, menu prices and on sustainability. In fish, predicts Jack Stein, chef-director at Rick Stein’s restaurants, there’ll be growing interest in the cheaper pouting, dab and whiting.
Cuisine-wise, Waitrose tips Nepalese and Pakistani food for greater exposure in Britain. The supermarket is also backing Korean doenjang paste as the new miso, as east Asian food continues to enthral foodies. From omakase dining (a menu set by the chef) to senbei rice crackers (a 2024 tip from specialist retailer, Sous Chef), Japanese food, in particular, will be a huge inspiration.
Alternatively, Pinterest is reporting search increases for “melty mashups”, comfort food crossovers which, despite the terrifying name, sound (pizza-inspired pies, smashed burger tacos, ramen noodle carbonara) quite tasty, actually. Jelly sweet kebabs, less so.
How that fits with our burgeoning interest in gut health, who knows? But as we toast 2024 – perhaps, with Joia restaurant’s squid ink-blackened cocktail – it is guaranteed to be interesting.
• This article was amended on 31 December 2023. In the “Television” section, an earlier version mistakenly included the novel Shuggie Bainamong TV adaptions due to be shown on BBC One in 2024, and said a factual drama about the Grenfell Tower disaster, as well as Riz Ahmed’s series Englistan,would also be screened by the BBC. Release dates for these have yet to be set. Also, Prasanna Puwanarajah was incorrectly described as having acted in