Whisper it - vinyl, celebrating its 60th birthday this very year, is sexy again.

Although analysts and naysayers have predicted its demise for the last half-century, the good old vinyl album simply refuses to roll over and die as hi-fi purists, DJs, young hipsters and simply those with a keen sense of history continue to argue its corner as the most emotionally-charged and sonically-rich means of hearing your favourite tracks.

As methods of music carriage grow ever tinier and conceptual, the romance of the album grows more compelling with the passage of time; the rituals and reminiscences attached. The artwork, the inner sleeve, the sheer size of the package, all take on potency as time passes. The limitations of the format meant that every masterwork had to come in around the 40 minute mark, and because there was no self-programming, the only running order you knew was the one that was painstakingly concocted in the studio. That’s why it’s impossible to hear Visions from StevieWonder’s Innervisions without waiting to hear Living For The City about to start, or getting ready for Blue Condition to end on Disraeli Gears by Cream so you could hear Tales Of Brave Ulysses. If you wanted to skip a track, you had to get up off your backside to move the needle on. And that, of course, was all part of the love affair.

And now, according to Billboard, there is a growing generation who are eschewing CD altogether and plumping instead for a vinyl version and a download instead.
To celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the long-playing record, Universal Music Group is delighted to announce the release of 80 titles (in four batches) on much-loved 30cm black vinyl across 2008, starting with the first batch of 20 titles in July 2008. All will be exact replicas of the original packages. Classics of the past sixty years will be available again!

But this is not merely some history exercise for dewy-eyed oldies. Each album contains a voucher enabling the purchaser to download MP3 versions of the songs within. It’s time to embrace the past as we march into the future!