The unparalleled David Hepworth celebrates the reign – and the return – of the LP (from ‘Sgt Pepper’ to ‘Thriller’), how vinyl changed the music, the music industry and the way we listen.

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Hepworths knowledge and understanding of rock history is prodigious [a] hugely entertaining study of the LPs golden age The Times

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The era of the LP began in 1967, with Sgt Pepper; The Beatles didnt just collect together a bunch of songs, they Made An Album. Henceforth, everybody else wanted to Make An Album.

The end came only fifteen years later, coinciding with the release of Michael Jacksons Thriller. By then the Walkman had taken music out of the home and into the streets and the record business had begun trying to reverse-engineer the creative process in order to make big money. Nobody would play music or listen to it in quite the same way eve