FACT magazine

The IFPI’s Recording Industry in Numbers report shows vinyl sales’ best year since 1997

9th April 2013 •

According to the IFPI's (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) annual Recording Industry in Numbers report, sales of vinyl records last year hit $177 million, their highest level [...]

This Interview Has Been Compressed: Jonathan Sterne, author of <i>MP3: The Meaning Of Format</i>, speaks

This Interview Has Been Compressed: Jonathan Sterne, author of MP3: The Meaning Of Format, speaks

25th August 2012 •

“We don’t normally write media history in terms of compression,” says Jonathan Sterne, McGill University Communication Studies professor and author of MP3: The Meaning of a Format. “But it [...]

The broken record: vinyl, matter, memory and meaning

9th May 2012 •

“If the phonographic disk had self-consciousness, it could point out while replaying a song that it remembers this particular song. And what appears to us as the effect of a rather simple mechan [...]

Radio 4 investigate the 12 inch single; Peter Saville talks ‘Blue Monday’

29th February 2012 •

Tomorrow, BBC Radio 4 will dedicate a show to the art of the 12 inch vinyl single, and its journey from the mid-'70s onwards. Presented by journalist and founder of the ZZT label Paul Morley, [...]

Grief and Lossless: Steve Jobs was working on new audio format to replicate vinyl's sound quality

3rd February 2012 •

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs may have given contemporary music one of its most crucial inventions, the iPod, but he was apparently a big vinyl fan. According to Neil Young, recently addressing a tec [...]