Photo: Doug Coombe
Or, download this, punk
Okay, the White Stripes UK vinyl version of its latest single (“Icky Thump” - No. 2 on the UK charts) sold more than a whopping 10,000 copies in its first two days of release, which is more than the single’s CD and download sales combined. It’s been a mighty long 20 years since anyone in the UK sold this many 45s (albeit the Stripes one is aided by a clever little marketing scam cooked up by Sir White and co. involving the NME; read the Guardian piece for the story.) Pretty fucking eyebrow-raising, yeah? Kudos to Sir White for trumpeting music formats that you can actually hold in your hands, ones that actually sound good. As an aside, I could go on and on and on and on of my downright hatred of downloaded music, but why bother?
*Thanks to sometime MT UK correspondent Shireen Liane for pointing the Guardian piece out.
