Get into the groove: why the demand for vinyl LPs is outstripping supply

Many believe the vinyl resurgence is nothing but a bubble waiting to burst, but Steve Boggan believes otherwise. There’s nothing else to be invented, so those tactile long-playing discs are here to stay

The Vinyl Factory’s Aga Dolega-Lawry inserts a new master of ‘Definitely Maybe’ by Oasis into the pressing machine at the UK’s largest vinyl pressing plant (Getty)

In 1903, Charles H Duell, commissioner of the US Patent and Trademark Office, supposedly resigned from his post after arguing that “everything that can be invented has been invented”. Duell didn’t actually say that – in fact historians have established that the quote came from a cartoon in Punch magazine – but I’m appropriating it anyway in support of my theory that vinyl records have a rosy future. They’re not going away. Their unexpected renaissance is not a bubble that will burst any time soon.

“Cassette tapes died out once you could record Top of the Pops on video,” I say to veteran vinyl manufacturer Adam Teskey. “People started turning their backs on CDs once iTunes came along. And now you can stream as much music as you want, all the time, through headphones which don’t have wires that fall into the gravy on your chips… and yet people still want vinyl. There’s nothing left to be invented as a music delivery system, so LPs are here to stay.”