Shropshire's small music shops get spinning for Record Store Day

Inaugurated in 2007, each April over 260 independent record shops across the UK come together to celebrate their businesses with others around the globe.

Special releases are made exclusively for the day, and many shops host artist performances and events to celebrate.

Last year saw the largest volume of vinyl sales since 1990, with 5.5 million units sold in the UK in 2022, outselling CDs, with over £150 million worth of album sales.

With Harry Styles mingling with Fleetwood Mac in the top five, the retro format is still clearly growing and showing little signs of slowing down.

Andy Haddon, owner of Left for Dead on Wyle Cop in Shrewsbury said: "If you buy a record and look after it, it will last 50 years or even longer.

"That's the difference between a record and a download. It's about having something tangible in your hand. Downloads, they're not real, you can't hold it.

"I think that's why records had a resurgence."

Last year, Record Shop Day ambassador, Taylor Swift said the stores are important to help foster music-loving as a passion.

She said: "They create settings for live events. They employ people who adore music thoroughly and purely. We need to support these small businesses more now than ever to make sure they can stay alive, stay eccentric, and stay individual.”

But the future of independent record stores is at stake, Andy warned, saying that the cost of living crisis has exacerbated the problems for an industry that is relying on expensive and outdated technology.

He explained: "If you're in an industry where you have demand for products, you mass produce, but the record industry hasn't done that.

"The tech that exists now is the same technology that existed in the '60s and '70s. There has been little attempt to research methods to make it cheaper, to protect the longevity of the industry.

"We want to see our records as cheaply as we can, but they're expensive.

"If you want to get younger people into records you need to make it cheaper, at the moment it's an exclusive environment.

"Until that changes, young people will stay with downloads because it's cheaper."