And it has seemingly come from nowhere. Vinyl sales were dying off with the people that used them first time around and a revival seemed about as likely as the original line up of The Beatles reuniting. Yet in 2011, sales of vinyl jumped up 40% compared with 2010 against a backdrop of a massive reduction in the overall market for music sales. Reasons for the leap are as diverse as a reaction against the disposability of modern culture, the retro fads of the latest youth generation and the hunt for profits by the record companies. Whatever the reason, you’d think it would be good news for UK print, but unfortunately that’s not necessarily the case.
Of course, vinyl never disappeared completely – much like many of the artists that first found fame on the medium, it has diligently plugged away out of the glare of the public attention and without the large sales numbers it once commanded. The release of tape, CD and then digital music tore chunks from its share of the sector, but as Gennaro Castaldo, head of press at music retailer HMV, explains, the new media could not kill it off completely.
"Vinyl has never entirely gone away," he explains. "It has long been part of the culture of rock and roll, so for guitar bands in particular it was cool to bring a single or album out on vinyl along with the CD and more recently digital formats. This was replicated among fans – students and ‘bedroom DJs’ like buying and collecting vinyl almost as a badge of honour, they are true music fans."
What changed last year was that interest in the medium exploded beyond the collectors and the few DJs still opting for vinyl and moved into the mainstream. Major artists such as Adele, Noah and the Whale and Radiohead released high-profile albums on vinyl and both older people nostalgic for the medium and young people hungry for something they ironically deemed "new" bought them up in bulk. Record companies, recognising the opportunity, capitalised, according to Neil Gibbons, general manager at Key Production, a brokerage firm for record industry print.
Gold discs
"Record companies are looking at how they can increase value to compensate for falling sales and they have found they can do that through vinyl – through the packaging and what they include in the products, they can charge more," he explains.
Gibbons says the drive in value has come from making vinyl releases more collectable through limited editions, special print techniques and innovation. For example, a current trend is the box set, where several vinyl records are packaged with books and CDs and other items in a presentation box. These can fetch up to £100 or more.
"You can charge more because you are creating a buzz about the record and you are limiting accessibility to it, or adding features to it, which makes people think it is worth buying," explains Gibbons. "And many won’t ever play the record, it’s a piece of artwork to them. So now it is common to put a drop-card in the sleeves that takes the customer to a download of the music, so they don’t have to actually play the vinyl."
For companies like Senol Printing, which has served the music industry print market for half a century, this appears to be good news. Director Jacqui Gunn explains that the market is now all about high-end products employing special finishes and top quality print – areas where margin is still a reality, not a pipedream.
"Everyone is constantly looking for an angle to make them unique," she explains. "This tends to mean die-cutting, foil-blocking and other techniques aimed at really pushing the boundaries and creating a high-end product."
However, she warns that this does not mean that more print is necessarily running through the presses. She explains that the average run length now is around 500, whereas 10 years ago it was around the 10,000 mark. This has meant Gunn has had to take on commercial work to fill the presses during downtime.
"It’s about a 60-40 split in favour of the record company work," she reveals. "We had to diversify as there just wasn’t enough sleeve work left in the UK to go around."
Indeed, the competition from the EU has decimated the UK vinyl production market. Gunn estimates that there are only around four companies with the kit to press vinyl in the UK left and she says that for the printers, competition from the EU is also getting ever fiercer. Barry Miller, managing director at RAD Print, which also serves the record industry, agrees.
"While we are competitive on our print price and the EU companies cannot really match us, they have the advantage as they press the vinyl as well," he explains. "So they will offer companies a deal if both the print and the vinyl pressing is bought with them, and that takes it to a total price we can’t compete with."
Fortunately for both RAD and Senol, the EU companies tend not to be interested in the 10-inch and 7-inch vinyl work and so the majority of that stays in the UK and forms the bulk of what Gunn and Miller produce.
"The EU companies do not seem interested in doing 7-inch or 10-inch sleeves so we get a lot of that work," says Gunn. "That has kept us going. This does tend to be the more interesting end of the market as well."
Gunn still produces the sleeves on litho machines, but Miller has recently moved into digital print for the first time, buying a Konica Minolta C550 last August.
"Traditionally, we are litho printers, but with the runs getting smaller and smaller it made sense to move into digital for the 7-inch market, where we can produce short runs more cost effectively yet to the same quality," says Miller.
He is also targeting the market for the labels for the vinyl records themselves, but so far has been frustrated by the fact the substrate used for vinyl labels since they first began, "by far the best substrate for the job", cannot be printed upon properly using digital printers – so Miller is currently searching for an alternative.
Gibbons says digital print is not necessarily a pre-requisite for participation in the vinyl market, however – he points out Senol as a prime example. He explains that, cost-wise, it doesn’t make that much difference which medium you choose.
"Printers do not necessarily have to have digital kit to operate in this area," he reveals. "Sometimes if you are looking at a small run, it is actually more cost-effective doing the job litho and printing extra copies than doing it digital – often the price is very similar."
Likewise, there is some debate as to whether printers in this area need to keep finishing in-house to control costs. Gunn outsources finishing, and while she acknowledges the diminishing trade finishing market has made that more difficult, with less choice of companies, she says she has long-term relationships with firms that still work very well. Miller, however, believes bringing finishing in-house is a better option.
"The cost of outsourcing is horrendous now and for the short runs it just wasn’t worth it," he explains. "We are looking to do more inhouse as well – we want some secondhand machines that do things like cutting, creasing and foil-blocking really well – we are not looking to keep up with the latest finishing innovations, we just want to cater for the specific demands of our customers. And that sort of secondhand machine would do that."
Turning the tables
Their methods may vary, but Gunn and Millar are both doing their utmost to protect what is left of the UK vinyl production market. Gunn explains that the US and Japan, where vinyl remains extremely popular, do not have much in the way of their own production capability and so these markets are helping keep UK printers afloat. With the EU companies getting more competitive on price, however, this too will come under threat. Hence, Miller has hooked up with other members of the UK supply chain to push the ‘buy British’ message to consumers.
"We are hitting back," he says. "We work very closely with a couple of record labels and a company called Vinyl Factory – who are very big in the market, doing top-end packaging – and together we spoke to music journalists about keeping vinyl alive and produced in the UK. As part of this we have signed up for the ‘Made In Great Britain’ tag. We hope this will spur people into supporting this industry in the UK and keep it produced in this country."
So while the vinyl trend itself looks set to continue and grow – HMV’s Castaldo says the retailer will be expanding the space given to vinyl in store and increasing stock – it seems some work needs to be done if the UK print industry will benefit. Thankfully, we still have some printers doing amazing work and proving their worth, so it’s just down to the consumer, to make sure they support them.
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