Vinyl has had a HUGE resurgence in recent years. It's no longer an uncool, outdated method of listening to music that only old guys were into - now young people and old people, new fans and long-time fans are picking up a piece of black plastic goodness. It's nostalgic, it's tangible, they increase in value, it's cooler to get an exclusive copy, and it's much more fun digging through a record store for a vinyl than it is scrolling through your streaming service account. Sorry, but it's true.
Vinyl sales have risen so much, in fact, that this week Australia's ARIA Chart has announced the launch of a new vinyl chart. Now we'll know which of your fave artists' vinyls are selling the best - for example, in 2018, two of the year's best selling records were Gang Of Youths' Go Farther In Lightness and Arctic Monkeys' Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino.
April 13th is the vinyl-collector's favourite day of the year - Record Store Day! Independent retailers all over the world start selling exclusive, rare, one-off or limited editions reissues of albums and the once-dwindling record stores are back in their prime.
To celebrate, we wanted to look back at some of our all-time favourite episodes of Diggin' In The Crates, the Cool Accidents exclusive video series that has seen some of the world's biggest artists go sifting through a record store for their favourite records for over 5 years and nearly 40 episodes.
fleet foxes
US indie rockers Fleet Foxes stopped by Title Records and pulled a whole heap of varied records from the crates, including Nina Simone, Dungen, The Everly Brothers and Joni Mitchell. We love this one because we have TWO members of the band sharing their musical influences!
nile rodgers
Though this one's a 15-minute whopper of a video, Chic's Nile Rodgers is an absolute musical genius so we were super honoured to have the legend on the series and going through the crates at Sydney's Red Eye Records. He shares anecdotes about working with Madonna, getting into the studio with Jimi Hendrix on a fake ID and lots, lots more.
charli xcx
Shot back in 2015, Charli XCX showed us the influences that shaped her now very edgy pop sound and surprisingly, it stemmed from influential bands like The Monkees, The Bee Gees and... Eminem.
all time low
All four members of pop punk favourites All Time Low were kind enough to offer us two records each that they grew up being very inspired by and it shows the array of artists that the band all formed from. Alex shares records from David Bowie and Nirvana, Zack shares Led Zeppelin and Rage Against The Machine, Rian namechecks Billy Joel and Jack shares his favourite Lana Del Rey record.
The Regrettes
We took The Regrettes to the other side of the world to London's Rough Trade East in this episode, which coincidentally has the most views of all our Diggin' In The Crates episodes. The whole band share their influences in this one too, mentioning records from Radiohead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Francoise Hardy and more.
skegss
The Skegss boys definitely were a little worse for wear when they showed up for this one, but they pulled through with the silliness and sick records in perfect fashion. The boys picked out records from The Flaming Lips, Ween, Bob Dylan and more - and we love the Super 8 footage cut through it too.
anne-marie
Anne-Marie was one of the few artists to share a heap of R&B and hip hop records that shaped her singing and writing style, including albums by Alicia Keys, D'Angelo and Eminem, as well as pop albums by John Mayer and ABBA.
moby
The famous DJ and producer is a wealth of knowledge and it shows in his 11-minute episode of Diggin' In The Crates - he picks out records from Marianne Faithfull, Neil Young and Kris Kristofferson.
For more episodes of Diggin' In The Crates episodes, including episodes with The Wombats, Kimbra, Royal Blood, What So Not, Grouplove and more, make sure you subscribe to Cool Accidents on YouTube!
