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maltatoday SUNDAY 7 JANUARY 2018 News 9 helps. "Try not to scratch it, keep it clean and it should outlive you a hundred times," D'Amato says. Despite the fact that mobile phones and tablets are music lov- ers' devices of choice for music playback – a result of streaming media's dominance – vinyl's vin- tage novelty is feeding a boom in record sales, he says. "It's led to an interesting situa- tion whereby artists from decades ago are topping charts due to vi- nyl sales." In fact a look at 2016's record charts is like stepping into a 1980s time warp - Queen, the Stone Roses, Fleetwood Mac, Da- vid Bowie, the Clash are amongst the most popular. Mercifully, the likes of Macklemore and Justin Bieber appear to be absent. "New vinyl listeners tend to start with Pink Floyd, the Beatles, David Bowie, the Rolling stones. Bowie's Aladdin Sane is flying off the shelves right now." The best- selling albums include Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, and The Wall and the Beatles' Abbey Road. "There are the must haves and then you go on building your col- lection," D'Amato says. Averaging €25 an album, the cost could be ex- pected to be prohibitive to a gener- ation used to cheap (or free) music downloads. But this isn't reflected in the format's climbing sales fig- ures. The boost in vinyl sales is part of a wider shift in the fortunes of the music industry as it returns towards turning a profit, with vinyl increasingly a significant source of income for record labels and mu- sicians, because the profit margins on it are huge. "We have been established since 1885, five generations ago," D'Amato says of the eponymous shop. "At the turn of the century we moved to records but never changed location...It is curating a piece of history." The business has had its ups and downs but things are looking promising, he says. "The demand was very good in the past couple of years and it's growing," D'Amato says. "In the UK, HMV have sold more re- cord players than they had in the 1970s." "First editions are much more valuable... they hold value and in- crease in value every year. If the Chinese market takes hold, the price of original records will sky- rocket... through the roof." Vinyl was the dominant format for music reproduction from 1912 till the late 20th century and re- tained the largest market share even when new formats such as the compact cassette started to emerge, but by the late 1980s, the digital compact disc had supersed- ed vinyl, and the record fell from popularity around 1991. From the 1990s to the 2010s, records continued to be manufactured and sold on a much smaller scale, before making a comeback in the early 21st century – 9.2 million re- cords were sold in the US in 2014, a 260% increase since 2009 and UK sales have increased 500% between 2009 and 2014. In 2017, vinyl re- corded double-digit growth for the seventh consecutive year, with an estimated 40 million records sold. That figure – along with the sales of turntables and other listening accessories – pushed the industry over the $1 billion mark. Vinyl's resurgence is all the more remarkable considering that physical album sales continue to plummet as customers gravitate toward streaming services such as Spotify and Google music. Even local artists are releasing records on vinyl, he says, nam- ing bands Brikkuni, Brodu and Beesqueeze as recent converts. Records can be collectors' items. "What determines the value is the etching," D'Amato explains. All records have etching right under the label, indicating its pressing number. "This is what determines the value." A first press of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon would fetch thousands of euros to- day, he says. "There is a craze for crate-dig- ging, where people come and dig into crates of old records, looking for treasures. Sometimes they find them." magius@mediatoday.com.mt POST OF FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION MANAGER AT THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES The Clerk of the House of Representatives invites applications for the post of Finance and Administration Manager. Details concerning the conditions, duties, eligibility requirements, selection and submission of applications can be found in the call for applications which may be downloaded from the website of the Parliament of Malta at the following address www.parlament.mt or collected from the Finance and Administration Section, House of Representatives, Freedom Square, Valletta VLT 1010. Applications, together with the relative documentation, will be received by the House of Representatives by not later than noon (CET), Friday, 19 January 2018, or submitted electronically on dcs.parlament@parlament.mt. Into the groove Curators of Maltese history on vinyl: brothers Anthony (left) and William D'Amato take the family business forward, safeguarding a collection of Maltese productions from the 1920s