National Album Day returns in October on Saturday 12th encouraging music lovers ‘#Don’t Skip’ to discover the joys of listening to albums in their entirety. Following a successful inaugural year, National Album Day is set to return for its second annual edition on Saturday, 12th October.
Organised jointly by record labels body the BPI and ERA – the Entertainment Retailers Association, and with the active participation of AIM (Association of Independent Music), National Album Day has the backing and input of the wider music community including industry umbrella body UK Music.
The music and artist community will come together with the support of BBC Sounds ‘for a series of events and activities in the lead up to 12th October that will celebrate the UK’s love for the album and the craft that goes into making this culturally significant body of work’. BBC Sounds is supporting the day as official broadcast partner through programming and editorial across BBC networks.
This year’s National Album Day is themed around the notion of ‘Don’t Skip’, to encourage music lovers to discover albums – both new and classic – in full, as a complete body of work that tells a story.
A number of the UK’s most prominent artists have already signed up as ‘album champions’ for this year’s National Album Day campaign: No.1 artist Lewis Capaldi, Mercury Prize winners Elbow, BRIT Award nominated Mahalia, and international musician/producer Mark Ronson.
Last year’s NAD event coincided with the 70th anniversary of the LP, with numerous artist ambassadors including Paloma Faith, Public Service Broadcasting, Jess Glynne, Novelist, Alice Cooper, and Tom Odell supporting the campaign. It was also celebrated through retail events, Classic Album Sundays artist Q&As and playbacks, and a Network Rail exhibition of iconic album artwork. A social media campaign at 3.33pm on the day saw fans unifying to listen to their favourite album.
Albums continue to remain popular with 143m albums or their equivalent either streamed, purchased or downloaded in the UK in 2018 representing a near 6% rise on the year before. Of this, 4.2m vinyl LPs were sold, a 2000% rise since their low point in 2007.
For more details on planned events to celebrate National Album Day go here.
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