Every so often, when hope is almost lost, an endangered species claws its way back from the brink. With loving care, a population flourishes and even re-establishes itself in the wild. Vinyl records, it appears, may be this kind of creature. A couple of decades ago they appeared on the verge of extinction, found only in dedicated collections. Then the numbers climbed again: a global revival had begun. Vinyl charts were reintroduced two years ago on the back of rising sales. Sony has announced that it will return to making vinyl, 30 years after it gave up. Sainsbury’s launch of own-label records this week highlights the surge of interest in a format once thought as enduring as phonograph cylinders or the eight-track cartridge.

Only some of this can be ascribed to middle-aged nostalgia. Young people have discovered vinyl too, and not always via their parents. You could still dismiss this as part of a “retromania” which flees the excitement and uncertainty of the present for a safer past; or as crass materialism, with buyers surrounding themselves with objects like so many entombed pharaohs. There are plenty of collectors whose sense of self is buttressed by the inches of vinyl they can muster (and how obscure those records are – no supermarket purchases there).

But there is nothing shallow about delighting in the tangible and tactile; and whatever tech firms try to tell us, progress is not synonymous with disposal and obsolescence. To embrace vinyl is to revolt against the relentless imperatives of efficiency and convenience – the demand that we maximise productivity even in enjoying our leisure. Its warmth and hiss stand in contrast to the hard, bright, hygienic sterility of a digital recording. Part of its value and desirability lies precisely in its inconvenience. It cannot be summoned on the bus to work. It takes up space. It is heavy. It scratches easily. Sometimes it warps. We must learn to care for it.

Playing it is a kind of ritual. Instead of picking our favourites on our iPhone, we submit to the dictates of its creator (in Sainsbury’s case, Bob Stanley, the author and St Etienne co-founder, whose wide-ranging love of pop is the antithesis of snobbish hipster exclusivity). We give that difficult third track another go, instead of skipping past it. We accept that we must get up to turn over the record in 20 minutes’ time – or even two-and-a-half. Vinyl is a living creature, imperfect and demanding, and all the better for it, whether found in an independent store or next to fishfingers and merlot.