Tesco will become the first UK supermarket to revive the sale of vinyl records.

They mark the venture with the release of Iron Maiden’s new album ‘The Book of Souls’, which will be available to buy in 55 of Tesco’s largest stores from Friday (September 4).

Tesco music buyer Michael Mulligan’s told Engadget that stocking vinyl was the “next logical step” in the company’s strategy. In April this year the supermarket revealed an annual loss of 6.4 billion pounds, one of the biggest in British corporate history, and warned investors there could be more pain to come.


In January, vinyl sales in the UK topped 1.3 million for the first time since 1995.

Figures released by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), the trade association for the UK record industry, show that while vinyl is still a niche format, accounting for just two per cent of the total UK music market, sales continue to grow, hitting the million mark for the first time since Britpop’s height in 1996 back in November, and were boosted even further by the Christmas market.

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The biggest-selling album of 2014 on the format was Pink Floyd’s ‘The Endless River’, their first album in 20 years and also the fastest-selling vinyl album of the year. Arctic Monkeys’ ‘AM’ was in second place, and Royal Blood’s self-titled debut in third.

This is not the first time Tesco have ventured into the world of music retailing. In 2010 they revealed plans to enter the download market with a new online file service, Digital Locker, in a bid to challenge iTunes’ UK supremacy in the digital music market, although nothing ever came to fruition.

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