Toy Love's vinyl-only LP hits charts

The revival of vinyl records has hit a new milestone with this month's Toy Love album re-issue becoming the first vinyl-only release to hit the New Zealand album charts in decades.

Real Groovy reports the Toy Love Double LP came in at Number 15 on the Rianz National Album Charts and it reached Number 4 on the New Zealand Album charts

And the Goner Records release of Live At The Gluepot made number 17 on the NZ album charts.

"These were all on vinyl sales only. It's probably the first time since the late eighties this has happened, said Real Groovy Records projects manager John Baker.

Baker said that the Real Groovy release was distributed to independent stores only - so it was not available through major retail outlets like The Warehouse or JB Hi-Fi.

Marketing was built around Toy Love winning the New Zealand Herald Legacy Award at this year's New Zealand Music Awards and their induction into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame.

The actual number of sales was small by historic standards - about 1000 copies of the double album were sold.

But Baker insists the charting performance goes beyond Toy Love and reflects the growing popularity of vinyl.

Increasingly bands are releasing vinyl records and Real Groovy vinyl sales are are up 27 per cent on last year, he says