By Ryan Pilot
The UK music charts were shook up in 2007 when the rules were changed to remove the entry requirement of a physical format.
But Tom Butchart is a devout vinyl worshipper, he also owns and runs Teesside's sole surviving independent record shop, Sound It Out.
The shop is just off the High Street in Stockton and Tom says he's witnessing a vinyl revival:
"There's a backlash against MP3s, now the charts don't mean anything."
With bands now choosing to put out their singles exclusively as MP3 downloads, the download market is booming, and physical sales are said to be dying out.
As Billy Bragg put it earlier this year in a Times interview, "The record industry is in trouble... but the music industry is thriving."
But Tom's shop Sound It Out is noticing a movement in the other direction:
"Ten year-olds are coming in and then sixty year-olds - both to buy vinyl."
"We celebrated Record Store Day recently with a live band in the shop.
It was one of the biggest days I've ever had, people were stood outside, in the porch watching the bands."
Keep it independent
"HMV's fine if you know exactly what you want. If you want to come in and browse and look and talk about music and find out new bands, you should go see independents."Vinyl junkies always cite the warmth of vinyl's sound, its artwork and the satisfaction of having something 'real' when arguing for its superiority over the CD and MP3 and Tom's no different:
"CDs are rubbish. Vinyl's got the better sound… if I buy music it has to be on vinyl."
British vinyl and cassette album sales jumped 5.2% last year as CD sales fell, suggesting that the old formats are making a comeback.
The increase does not factor in independent shops such as Sound it Out and so the increase is likely to be even greater.
Many indie labels are releasing singles on vinyl only, some on cassette and a lot of vinyl releases now have CDs inside.
Tom has adapted his business as times have changed by branching out into online retail.
But it is his underground, specialist records and encyclopaedic knowledge of popular music that will always draw in customers from Teesside and beyond:
"I'm forever getting new customers. People come and go 'how long you been here?' and then you go 'well in March it's been fourteen years' and they're quite stunned."
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