I have a strong memory of scratching a Velvet Underground itch in the late Eighties by walking into the HMV on Oxford Street in London, looking for a new copy of Nico’s Chelsea Girl on vinyl and finding it there for £5.99. This seemed like a very normal, everyday thing at the time. A decade later I remember looking back on that day in much the way that soldiers in the trenches looked back on the golden age of the 1890s. Since the late Eighties, cassettes — both albums and “cassingles” — have boomed and died. The CD single likewise became a desirable object in the Nineties before becoming unsellable, and

Source: The Times August 06, 2021 23:03 UTC