me to the Moon’, Frank Sinatra’s 1964 hit, lived up to its name. Half a century ago, in July 1969, it was ‘Fly the first music heard on the Moon when it was played – on cassette – by Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin as he stepped onto its surface. Eight years later, NASA’s exploratory Voyager spacecraft entrusted its 54-minute cross-section of Earth’s music to a record, etched with instructions on how to play it – including a handy stylus. The scientist behind the project, Carl Sagan, was optimistic that the spacecraft would not only be ‘encountered’ but that the record itself ‘will be played… if there are advanced space-faring civilizations in interstellar space’.
Who’d have guessed that 50 years later, we ourselves would still be playing these records (as well as cassettes, inexplicably making a comeback too). Over the past 15 years record sales have skyrocketed. According to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), over five million vinyl LPs were bought in
