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Music

Arctic Monkeys Don’t Even Need Singles to Sell a Shit-Ton of Vinyl

'Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino' shifted 24,500 vinyl units in the UK in its first week, making it the fastest-selling album in 25 years.
Lauren O'Neill
London, GB
Image by Zackery Michael via PR

One of the big takeaways from the press cycle for the new Arctic Monkeys record, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, is that this is not a singles record. The band didn't release any standalone tracks before the album came out in full; there are no obvious bangers, and there aren't even really any choruses ("Four Out of Five" with its "Take it easy for a little while / come and stay with us" refrain is about as close as it gets, which is: not very close). Instead, critics have commented that you really have to listen to the album as a whole, and it seems that punters agree, as the full-length has scored the Monkeys their sixth consecutive number one on the UK albums chart.

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The Official Charts company has it that in total, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino sold 86,000 copies in its first week (making it the biggest record of the week in all formats which is quite a feat.) Of those copies, 24,500 were on vinyl, which made the album the fastest-selling record on vinyl for 25 years (breaking the record previously held by Liam Gallagher's As You Were, which sold 16,000 in its first week).

I'm always fascinated by the albums that do well on vinyl, and it seems that rock as a genre still dominates that format. One one hand it's very your dad talking about "Real Music". But on another, it does still bring a tear to my vinyl nerd's eye to see physical albums, and the experience of going to buy them, and taking them home and playing them reverently on a turntable – so formative for me as a music fan – kept alive by new albums like this. It's me. I'm your dad.

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