Peter Viney's Blog

Shrink wrapped albums 

The newspapers this week are full of warm season news about shrink wrapping albums, adding acres of thin plastic contributing to filling the Sargasso sea, polluting beaches in the Dominican Republic and causing the demise of butterflies in Tibet … I made the last one up.

There’s history to this.

In Britain, LP albums were never shrink-wrapped. Every store put the empty sleeves out in racks, and kept the records in their inner sleeves behind the counter on shelves. It was for security and because it stopped people’s sticky hands marring the vinyl. Inner sleeves were not just there to stop the rough card of the interior of the sleeve abrading the record, though that was one purpose. They were also what the record was stored in.

LPs stayed in inner sleeves behind the counter. Only the outer sleeves were on display.

You could also ask to listen to an LP in store. Mostly the stores had record players behind the counters, linked to listening booths. The plusher ones with closed doors were also snogging centres.

Other stores handed you the record and you put it on a turntable yourself. These are the surviving images on line, but most near my home put the LP on centrally.

By 1970 they had listening posts with headphones instead,

Our best local Bournemouth store, Bourne Radio, had sympathetic staff so that local musicians could go in and play a track often enough to transcribe the lyrics (approximately) and get the tune and chords without buying the record. Even though the separation of sleeve and record was a security measure, you would often find records in their underwear (the inner sleeves) in the January Sales, at W.H. Smith or Boots, as the outer illustrated sleeves had been nicked to decorate walls.

When CDs came in, the same system prevailed in the UK. Cases were in racks, the actual CDs in card cases behind the counter.

It was different in the USA. Shrink-wrapped LPs date back to the early 1960s at least, so that you see ads for (say) The Beatles album Yesterday and Today with the banned and withdrawn butcher cover “still shrink-wrapped” so in mint condition. They had security guards maybe, or LPs were comparatively so much cheaper than the UK that they could afford a degree of attrition.

We move into the 80s and CDs and American stores added the long box to CDs so that they were 12” tall like an LP.  They could carry 2 CDs if need be. Then they shrink wrapped the long box. America had security detection scanners in stores far earlier than Britain, but even in smaller stores, a longbox was harder for shoplifters to conceal. By 1990 musicians such as David Byrne and Peter Gabriel were declining to have triple packaging on their CDs (jewel case inside a long box in shrink wrap). There was a Trash the Longbox campaign and Longbox packaging was officially dropped in 1993. Some stores used generic longboxes with the store name (e.g CostCo) after that point. Allegedly CDs with custom longboxes are worth more, as the vast majority were ripped open and discarded. As in my house. There is even a market for empty longboxes.

American Long boxes: on sale on eBay at $29.99 … without the CDs

Similarly, Japanese CDs are worth more if the translated card OBI strip has been kept along with the CD.

Japanese CD with OBI strip

When so many CDs moved out of plastic jewel cases into card sleeves, often so badly designed that the card ripped when taking the CDs in and out, shrink wrap was then needed to protect the matt card surfaces. If you see a few early card cases unsold in a shop with good back catalogue, they get very grubby through handling.

CD in jewel case with broken shrink wrap and security bar

Gradually larger UK stores like HMV moved over to security tags with a scanner at the door (enforced by a burly gent in a black suit). The tag was usually a thin bar, superglued to the wrap, so that CDs were left in their sleeves, shrink wrapped on the shelves. I’ve bought CDs with the bar stuck directly to the jewel case. it takes ages to get off, and whatever you use to clean it, marks the perspex case below.

2018 – LP in shrink wrap with price tag and info sticker on outer shrink wrap

When the LP was revived, stores found people only wanted untouched, unplayed vinyl so shrink wrapping was essential. Some stores sell both new and secondhand vinyl – curiously, the record labels don’t like that with CDs, but don’t worry about vinyl.

For these stores, once the shrinkwrap is broken, the record is secondhand. There is a practical aspect to this. Nowadays many LPs have a piece of paper with a download code inside the sleeve. If the wrap has been broken, then someone could have used the download code, and you can use it only once. The illustrated vinyl LP by the Manic Street Preachers includes a CD instead of a download code, which is even better if your car still has a CD player.

Download codes (obscured!)

The yellow circular SECURITY PROTECTED label is fast replacing the security bars.  These security tabs are designed to be impossible to remove. No one wants their LP sleeve marred by a great big yellow SECURITY PROTECTED sticker, and stores no longer separate record and sleeve. If you try to take the tag off, it will leave a torn hole in the sleeve. If you try it in the shop, the burly bloke in a black suit will twist your arm behind your back, rabbit chop you, and call the police.

Security sticker 2018. Sainsburys

Therefore some kind of wrap is essential. Newspaper articles predict some kind of biodegradable shrink wrap. However, Tesco tried that with carrier bags, and they biodegraded before you even got home. We had a stack in a cupboard and opened it and thought we had mice because the bags had biodegraded into powder all over the floor.

A good record shop prides itself on having a wide range of back catalogue, or better “deep catalogue” albums for sale, These do not turn over rapidly, and may stay on the shelves for many months or years. Before his branch closed, one HMV manager told me that 10% of stock generated 95% of sales. 90% of stock generated 5%, but it’s the presence of that 90% of stock that makes customers think “this is a good store” even if they then buy the Top Ten album that is also on sale in their local supermarket. Therefore, a biodegradable wrap will not work … the stock will be on the shelves long enough for the wrap to crumble.

The answer may be some kind of paper band. Who knows? But new albums will continue to require some kind of seal.