FIFTY quid for an album? Didn’t they used to be £3.99? When it comes to buying records, I think I’m stuck in the mid-1980s.

Like many Zoomers, my nephew has discovered vinyl. He got a record player for his birthday earlier this year and, to help kickstart his vinyl collection, I bought him an album by one of his favourite bands.

I balked at the £50 price tag. It had clearly been a while since I bought an LP, as we once called them.

Now Jack has fallen down a vinyl rabbit hole; he regularly goes to record shops to hunt for albums, as well as buying them online. It’s opened up a new world of music - he’s getting into artists he’d never heard of before and taking the time to listen to each track of a whole album, rather than just cherry picking music on streaming platforms.

It’s heartening to see a kid his age take pleasure in record cover artwork, and treating the vinyl with respect. I remember the joy of buying an album, bringing it home, opening it all up in my bedroom and lowering the stylus, while poring over the art and song lyrics. It felt like opening up a book for the first time and getting to know all the characters.

Vinyl is enjoying quite the resurgence among Gen Z music fans - and it could be down to ‘streaming fatigue’.

When we all started buying shiny new compact discs in the 1990s, vinyl became the domain of music snobs and dads (my brother’s kids came across his record collection when they were little and asked ‘What are those black round things?’) but now vinyl is hip. The Gen Zs can’t get enough of it. They’re showing off record collections all over TikTok, apparently.

According to music industry figures, six million records were sold last year and vinyl sales are higher than they’ve been for more than 30 years. Tired of music by algorithms, young music fans are opting for something more substantial. Record shops say it is younger customers who are buying most of the albums, and as well as music of their own generation, by the likes of Sam Fender and Harry Styles, they’re into classics from acts way before their time. Jack has been snapping up albums by U2, Bryan Adams, Oasis, the Rolling Stones and Fleetwood Mac. “Ah, you’ve got Rumours. Now that’s a classic,” I said, morphing into one of the prog rock beardy blokes I once encountered at a nerdy record fair.

But, while it’s good to see young people discover more acts, and a greater respect for music, through vinyl, it seems there’s a price to pay. Are records bad for the environment? Billie Eilish seems to think so. In a recent interview, the young singer criticised big name acts for the “wasteful” trend of releasing multiple vinyl versions of the same album.

Flogging numerous albums with different artwork, vinyl colours and glossy packaging has become quite the sales boost and Eilish, a champion of sustainability, says it’s not cool.

While some might call this a thinly veiled pop at Taylor Swift, who sells millions of records and is no stranger to multiple vinyl variants, Eilish may have a point.

The £50 album that I bought for Jack felt much thicker and heavier than the records I used to buy in the Eighties.

According to a recent report, creating an average vinyl record produces around 1kg of CO2, half of which comes from PVC. Then there’s all the packaging and the transportation.

But, while the creation of records leaves a carbon footprint, these are not disposable items. Vinyl is generally cherished for years, a lifetime, then passed down in families or given to second-hand record shops, so it doesn’t tend to end up in landfill.

There is a case for making records thinner, and using recycled PVC (Billie Eilish albums are said to be made from scrap vinyl), but the music streaming industry has much to answer for too. It’s a huge industry, using massive amounts of electricity, churning out music that’s here today, gone tomorrow. I know what I’d rather listen to.