Vinyl Countdown

A revival of interest in vinyl music has taken place in recent years—but for many of those from the "baby boomer" generation, who made their acquaintance with the music of their youth in this way, it never went away. Graham Sharpe, a high-profile veteran of the betting industry, boasts of being a vinyl record veteran with well over 50 years service as a serious 45 and 33rpm collector. Graham relaxes by visiting every record shop he can find, from London to New Zealand, to feed his voracious vinyl appetite, scorning and spurning to this day, advice that Spotify, downloading, streaming, are the way to go. His life has been played out to a background of personally significant vinyl-related events and his own large and ever-growing collection of LPs not only reflects his musical addiction, but also represents an intensely direct link to many of his key experiences. In this unique book he considers all the elements of record collecting which he loves—and one or two he doesn't—as he continues his long-term project to visit every surviving secondhand record shop in his own and other countries, and reports on the many characters he has encountered, and the adventures he has accrued along the way.