David Bowie 'Best Of' helps UK vinyl sales soar; Tony Visconti schedules NYC show w/ special guests
Larkin Grimm & Tony Visconti @ Knitting Factory, 2010 (more by Lori Baily)
Vinyl sales have been on the uprise for a while now, and 2014 was the biggest year for wax in nearly two decades. In the UK, new vinyl sales broke the one million mark, thanks in no small part to the new Pink Floyd album and David Bowie best-of. Reports Billboard:
The milestone was achieved at the weekend with the year-end figure expected to rise to around 1.2 million unit sales — a level of vinyl consumption not seen since 1996, when 1.1 million LPs were purchased and Fugees’ The Score was the year’s best-selling vinyl album. Last year, 780,674 vinyl albums were sold in the U.K. with Arctic Monkeys’ AM the biggest-selling vinyl release.
AM is also this year’s best-selling vinyl album, followed by Jack White’s Lazaretto, although the current incumbent of the No. 1 spot on the weekly Official Vinyl Chart is David Bowie with his new best of collection, fittingly titled Nothing Has Changed. It replaces last week’s No. 1, Pink Floyd’s The Endless River, which sold over 6,000 vinyl copies in its first week of release — the highest of any LP since 1997 and therefore the fastest-selling vinyl album this century.
Speaking of Bowie, frequent collaborator Tony Visconti, who also had a lot do with many of the songs that appear on Nothing Has Changed, is playing NYC at City Winery on January 3. The event is called “The TV Show” and features a host of special guests, including Suzanne Vega, Richard Barone (The Bongos) Kiah Victoria, Larkin Grimm (who we’ve seen him playing with before) and more to be announced. Tickets are on sale.
