Vinyl records, once thought extinct, have been make a strong come back in the last few years and Sony has taken notice in a big way this week. Sony is preparing to restart mass production in Japan after nearly 30 years letting the equipment sit idle. Nearly 800,000 vinyl records were sold in Japan last year, an 8X increase from 2010.
A Sony factory near Tokyo will begin pressing out vinyl in March 2018, the Nikkei Asian Review reported this week. The company has already installed record-cutting equipment at a recording studio in Tokyo, which will cut the master copies before they’re sent to the factory for mass production.
The initial albums will contain mostly older Japanese music, but could expand to include today’s hit songs, which Japanese youth are increasingly searching for on vinyl, according to Sony.
“A lot of young people buy songs that they hear and love on streaming services,” Sony Music CEO Michinori Mizuno told Nikkei.
The company is on the hunt for retired record engineers to advise current emplyess on how to do the lost art, per the Nikkei report.
