Vinyl proves it's not dead by joining forces with MP3! Learn more about the history of the "little disc" for the "archives"!

Since the boom of the 90s, CD sales have been falling steadily and MP3s have been gaining strength, mainly due to the popularization of portable players. With this picture, it's not difficult to conclude that vinyl is a definitively dead format, right? Wrong. The old biscuits had an 80% growth in sales in the last quarter in the United Kingdom. The data comes from BPI, the association that represents British record companies. According to the agency, seven-inch vinyl reached the number of 800 thousand units sold in the last quarter in the country. For those who suspect it is localized, the United States recorded the sale of 1.2 million of these records last year.

These are not astonishing numbers, capable of quenching the thirst of record companies. However, they show that the format, which in recent years has been exclusively linked to the DJ and collector segment, still has some commercial potential. Who is betting on this trend is the English band The Clientele, who decided to recover the glamor of vinyl and combine it with the practicality of compressed music files. The latest album is offered to the English in LP format but with a coupon that entitles you to download the album without the need for extra payment. A CD version is also offered.

In the end, the winners are the band's fans, who can count on the convenience of digital music without giving up one of the traditional formats. The English have finally surrendered to digital music. While in 2004 the total number of paid downloads for music tracks totaled 5.4 million, this year, so far, the number has already reached 16.9 million. Since the format was launched, the country has accumulated around 25 million online song purchases. If vinyl grows in short steps, CDs plummet, dragging sales of physical formats down the slope, a drop of 21.8% in the last quarter in England.