Last week, I did something that I havent done in a long time. I went to a record shop and bought two albums - on old fashioned vinyl. That hasn't happened since the late 1980s when I finally succumbed to the CD.
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The fact that the two records I bought dated from even earlier - the mid 1970s - made me more alarmed. This was old music - on an old format complete with scratches. Overnight, I'd gone from an ageing youngster who likes to keep up with all thats modern in music to a nostalgic old rocker pining for pop's golden age.
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It seems I'm not alone. Sales of vinyl records are actually booming again according to retailers HMV and Virgin. The music format once declared dead and buried by the arrival of the CD is refusing to go away. High street record stores have started expanding their stocks of vinyl albums - young bands demanding their music be released not just on CD but on old-style vinyl too.
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Equally popular, it seems, is music from the 1960s and 70s. A glance at the album charts over the past few weeks shows rock's old guard piling into the nation's pop parade as if it were 1975 all over again - as if punk,new wave,the eighties,acid house,hip hop,Britpop and techno had never happened.
The Eagles,recently reformed and touring again, have a greatest hits album in the top ten. Bob Dylan's there too - courtesy of his 60th birthday celebrations, along with the likes of Roxy Music (recently back together again), Tom Petty, Bob Marley and Billy Joel. Add to that recent successes for Steely Dan and Carlos Santana, a comeback album from former Mott The Hoople frontman, Ian Hunter and forthcoming tours from the likes of Yes, Bad Company and 70s heavy rock band Uriah Heep and it almost feels like the old brigade are taking over.
Its not just the 1970s either. 1960s pop act the Monkees are back touring the UK again shortly. This week Jack Bruce, former bass guitarist with the 60s supergroup Cream releases his new album which contains re-recordings - 34 years on - of two of the bands best known songs "Sunshine Of Your Love" and "White Room" - Eric Clapton joining Bruce again on lead guitar and vocals. And it doesnt end there. Miles Davis' 1958 album "Kind Of Blue" has recently made the top 40 albums charts for the first time since its release more than 40 years ago.
In America its old-time music thats selling like hot cakes - one of the biggest selling albums this year is a collection of old style bluegrass and hillbilly songs taken from the Coen Brothers film "O Brother Where Art Thou". You'd be forgiven for thinking we've given up on the present and all gone music nostalgia crazy.
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