Yeah, pretty much every record store or chain of stores here in Britain stocks a good selection of vinyl nowadays. Hell, even supermarket chains like Sainsburys are stocking vinyl and they never did back in the '60s, '70s or '80s. Vinyl really has come back in a big, big way as a fairly mainstream thing.

What's really interesting about the vinyl revival of the last 10 years is that it, for the most part, it hasn't been driven by sad old record collectors like me, getting all moisten-eyed about this obsolete format. It has been predominantly driven by Millennials, who are all much too young to have ever bought records when they were the dominant way that people consumed music. In fact, a recent survey of British teenage record buyers by the Guardian showed that half of the Millennials who regularly buy vinyl don't even have a turntable to play their records on. They listen to their favourite artists on their iPods or via online streaming platforms, but they still like to own a physical LP by their favourite band because it's a tangible representation of their love of that band -- which is exactly what I was saying earlier about human beings being hardwired to want to surround themselves with "things" that reflect who they are as people.

The other thing that's really interesting about the vinyl revival among teens and 20-somethings, is that it pretty much proves that previous exposure to an old, analogue format isn't necessary for that format to gain popularity again. I mean, none of the Millennials currently driving the LP boom has any nostalgic connection to vinyl because they're too young. That's an interesting phenomena to observe because it has implications for all forms of physical media that are under threat from digital replacements.