Kevin Buckle: Sisters are doing it for themselves – and retail sales

Chappell Roan performs during the first day at the Coachella Festival in Indio, California in April

With more than two thousand businesses thought to be in serious trouble, it is easy to see why the predictions are so gloomy.

The recent budget was a double whammy which, while doing little about the high business rates levied on high street shops, then added to businesses costs by increasing national insurance and the minimum wage.

Meanwhile, in other news it was announced by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) that women led the way in recorded music this year, topping the singles chart for 34 out of the 52 weeks and accounting for half of the top 20 albums for the first time.

Now the music industry loves a good headline, so I’m a little wary as to how much of this is down to a wide rise in female artists rather than simply the inextricable rise of Taylor Swift, but there is a fair amount of evidence from sales in the shop that this is more than just Taylor’s doing.

Our biggest selling album in 2024 was from Chappell Roan and our top 100 chart for the year has multiple entries from Mitski, Lana Del Rey, Laufey and Fiona Apple plus big albums from Gracie Abrams, Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter and Phoebe Bridgers.

There are also albums from female-fronted bands such as Slowdive and Mazzy Star who manage to get all three of their studio albums in the chart despite only one of them being available on vinyl.

Hovering just outside the chart but not quite making it were Billie Eilish and Charlie xcx, who are both huge artists who don’t do quite as well in Avalanche as some of their lesser known counterparts but will have contributed substantially to these new figures from the BPI.

The added bonus to a record shop that supports all these female artists is that the fan base behaves very differently to fans of the older established artists who will generally be signed up to mailing lists that target them with some offering if they buy online.

Many of our sales are to youngsters coming to the shop with their friends or family and part of the excitement is buying it in the shop, replicating a feeling their grandparents will remember well.

We will have everything available by an artist on CD and cassette as well as vinyl and if there is merchandise we will have that too. Many go away with things they either didn’t know existed or thought were impossible to still get, so it is not just about selling the most recent release.

It isn’t all just about female singers, of course, and we are just as likely to have kids in looking for My Chemical Romance and the Deftones as we cover all tastes.

We are, of course, affected by the squeeze on margins, just as HMV are, but whereas HMV has announced a pause in any expansion plans, we will be able to continue to expand our offering thanks to Taylor and her female peers.