It may seem too unreal to be true, but in a bizarre twist of fate the MP3 file has somehow managed to save the vinyl record from extinction. You may wonder how, as surely the advent of digital music must have merely accelerated the process of driving vinyl records from the shops?

In fact you’d be wrong. It was the compact disc, or CD, that drove vinyl from the shops. The compact disc became the format of choice for the music buying public, forcing vinyl into the realm of the specialist shops, market places and car boot sales.

Now that digital downloads are the main way to buy music, and MP3 players and iPods have replaced CD players, it’s the CD market that’s taking a huge hit. The boot is firmly on the other foot now, and CD is a dying format.

However, there are still those music fans that like to have a physical format they can touch and feel. As CDs never fuelled their desires, vinyl was always their format of choice. Plus, now that CDs (which were always the darling of the mass market) have been replaced with digital downloads, there is no demand for them anymore. Therefore there is now a gap in the market, which the vinyl lovers are all too happy for their format of choice to fill.

Jay Millar is the sales manager for United Record Pressing, who manufacture vinyl records in the USA:

It really started picking up when iPods started coming onto the scene. Everything got so sterile with digital that people were not spending time with the physical manifestation of their music.

It’s the ultimate irony. The format that vinyl fans loathed so much, the MP3 download, has saved their format from the scrap heap.