Pet Shop Boys

Welcome…

Which is the most played record in your collection?

LONG LIVE VINYL

The Long Live Vinyl team’s favourite 70s Dylan records

Don’t Look Back

After exiting the 60s with one of his finest albums, Bob Dylan entered the 70s with one of his worst. Yet over the next 10 years, Dylan embarked on a reinvigorating journey through some troubled times, wearing many masks. Here, some of the key musicians who helped him make eight very different albums, talk Daniel Dylan Wray through a remarkable decade

2020 Vision

A new year can only mean one thing, more new albums. Here’s a quick preview of 10 LPs to look out for in 2020

The Selecter

Long Live Vinyl’s essential picks for the month ahead

NICOLAS GODIN

Work In Progress

Lost Shops

Brighton is full of great record shops, but one that

Simon says

The Bella Union founder ponders the wisdom of a return to the road, as his band, Lost Horizons, prepare to release album number two

How can record shops sell more vinyl?

We ask a number of store owners what key issues need to be addressed to enable them to sell even more records in 2020

The Completist

Before the age of instant gratification, our columnist remembers squeezing into a phone box to hear the chart hits of the time. Dial-a-Disc will always have a place in his heart

Rumours Has It

The 2010s were a vital decade for vinyl, but which acts were its biggest sellers?

Coming Soon…

OUR PICK OF THE NEW VINYL RELEASES

LINER NOTES

With scant regard for his own well being, our brave columnist dives headfirst into prog-rock waters and, specifically, the vinyl-centric world of The Alan Parsons Project

THE VINYLIST CHRIS REID

Chris’ LPs are sprawling out from their corner of the living room

Now Spinning

What we’ve been listening to post-Christmas, while finishing off the last of our supply of the IDLES x Signature Brew KRFSHT limited-edition toasted lager

Feel Every Beat

Marr and Sumner’s 1991 debut set for reissue

WORKING MEN’S CLUB

Jonathan Wright meets a Heavenly Records four-piece tipped for big things in 2020

CRATE DIGGING WITH… PORTICO QUARTET

With their latest album Memory Streams out now, Duncan Bellamy and Jack Wylie each unveil five albums that have made a deep impression on them

#33 Marilyn Manson

The cover for Marilyn Manson’s third album and second

SIMON & GARFUNKEL

Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon just about manage to hold

SETH LAKEMAN

As the Mercury-nominated folk songwriter releases a new record commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower’s voyage to America, he tells Gary Walker about a special album

1O Questions For… ROBERT FORSTER

On the occasion of the release of the second instalment of the G Stands For Go-Betweens boxset, co-founder Robert Forster casts an eye back at the band’s matchless middle period. Gary Tipp interrogates the Brisbanite

Dark Shadows

In the mid-90s, DJ Shadow ushered in a new breed of expansive, emotive hip-hop, revealing himself to be a connoisseur cratedigger in the process. He tells Felix Rowe about his brooding and apocalyptic new double album, owning one of world’s largest record collections and a surprising agnosticism towards vinyl

I’m someone who cares about detail. Even when I make stuff just for fun, I put work into it. It’s hard for me just to be light about it.

Released in late 2019, All Mirrors is the fourth album in an ever-more varied catalogue from an artist who defies easy categorisation. Rob Haywood meets Angel Olsen and discovers that the devil is in the detail…

FOREVER CHANGES

“I’m trying to be a better man… whatever that is.” The chorus of Courteeners’ recent single Better Man summarises singer Liam Fray’s attempts at self-improvement and the impostor syndrome he feels about his band’s status as one of the last rock & roll stadium outfits left standing. Fray tells John Earls how these issues informed their dazzling new album

DIGGING FOR VICTORY

In his final column, veteran record dealer Mark O’Shaughnessy signs off with his thoughts on the future of the ‘black gold’ he trades in

Strange Victory Records

The Northern Irish capital has seen the slow erosion of its once plentiful record shops over the past three decades. Cara Gibney visits Strange Victory to meet a pair of vinyl obsessives who are reversing that trend

Choice Cuts #33

The first pressing of the glam metallers’ debut was limited to a mere 900 copies, as Glen Bushell explains

THE WORLD AT WAR

Field Music have made a concept album exploring the ways in which ripples from the First World War played out through the 20th century and even beyond. Jonathan Wright hears exactly why and how they did it

The Doors MORRISON HOTEL

On their fifth album, The Doors abandoned experimental dalliances for the raw, sonic crunch of electric blues that had defined them in the first place. Fifty years on from its release, Neil Crossley assesses the merits of the album that returned them to the attention of the hip counterculture

British Folk Rock

The genre’s greatest vinyl releases tell the story of incredible stringed bands, crystalline vocals and remarkable solo artists. Gary Tipp cups an ear

THE SECRET OF SUCCESS

The Secretly Group is more than just the Secretly Canadian, Dead Oceans and Jagjaguwar labels. It’s also a distributor, publisher and indie powerhouse investing in side ventures as diverse as vinyl factories and arthouse films. Gareth Murphy meets the founders to uncover the success story behind America’s coolest labels

…Hungary For Vinyl

In an exclusive extract from his new book Vinyl Countdown, old-school record collector Graham Sharpe recounts his cratedigging exploits across the globe, starting with a diversion from a horseracing trip to Budapest

HOW TO BUILD THE PERFECT SETUP FOR 2020… WHATEVER YOUR BUDGET

With Christmas over and the January blues biting hard, it’s the perfect time to hunker down and build a new hi-fisystem that does your records justice. Whatever your budget, Jason Kennedy is on hand with a series of systems that combine the best turntables, amps and speakers your money can buy

£500 System

This is as low as you should go if you want to hear your records as they were intended to sound. It gets you decent components that will give years of entertainment if looked after and, if you’re lucky, be worth something when you come to upgrade

£750 System

This price point immediately allows for a more serious turntable, amp and speakers with a fit and finish that’s classy and sound quality that’s even more so. We have dedicated as much budget as we can to the amp as the turntable in this system, because both are difficult to do well for less

£1,250 System

This is where things start to get really interesting. The extra budget allows for high-quality components that have not had to be built down to a price point for a start, meaning you can include a serious front end, such as the Rega P2. This is the sort of system that reveals just what it is about a good pressing that’s so fabulous

£2,000 System

Our highest-budget system is a no-compromise combination of components that impress on all counts: build quality, feature count and most importantly sound. Of these, features are the least important and often get in the way of the end result, hence the manual speed change P3, all-analogue Brio amp and single-wire Oberon 5 speakers. The money in each case has been spent where it will reap the biggest sonic rewards, but they have left a little to deliver great finishes, too

Supergrass

It was a case of you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone with the mighty Supergrass. Now a comprehensive boxset looks to set the record straight. John Earls feels alright

Fela Kuti

A bassline starts hesitantly. Soon, it’s augmented

Frank Zappa

Preconceptions about Frank Zappa are rife. He’s either

Big Star

#1 RECORD/RADIO CITY

Sam Cooke

THE COMPLETE KEEN RECORDINGS (1957-1960)

Wire

A mere 17 studio albums in and the literate post-punk outfit still brim with passion, vitality and aggression. Wyndham Wallace finds the band in a deceptively poppy mood

Keeley Forsyth

DEBRIS

DREAM MACHINES

You’ll need to pay a pretty penny for the world’s most accomplished loudspeakers

Pro-Ject X1 TURNTABLE

Jason Kennedy extols the virtues of a refreshingly engaging turntable from Pro-Ject’s growing range

Naim NAIT XS 3 INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER

Naim’s iconic amp has undergone some major performance upgrades. John Pickford takes notice

CLOSER

The two-wheeling Syd Barrett’s lysergic love song closes out Pink Floyd’s debut. Gary Tipp moves through the gears