Revived 45 heads for 60th birthday

By Robert Plummer
Business reporter, BBC News

Sales of the vinyl single are now back up above the million mark in the UK. Figures for seven-inch discs, which have now risen to more than one million a year.

But who is actually buying all these singles? According to the British Phonographic Industry, which represents the British music business, a new generation of bands is attracting younger buyers. The BPI says the "popularity of bands such as Oasis, White Stripes [and] Arctic Monkeys" is reviving sales of the seven-inch, while record companies are also credited with using "innovative" strategies to highlight the format. In 2007, the White Stripes and their label, XL Recordings, gave away a red vinyl single mounted on the cover of the NME weekly music magazine.

It came in a gatefold sleeve with space to hold the band's commercial release, Icky Thump - a promotion that resulted in the highest sales for a vinyl seven-inch in more than two decades.

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