Tesco plans to sell Iron Maiden's The Book of Souls in vinyl

This week, the supermarket chain is reportedly planning to get into the rapidly growing vinyl music market as it sells Iron Maiden's latest album, The Book of Souls.

The album is the British heavy metal band's first offering in five years. The Book of Souls is scheduled for release on Friday and will go on sale in 55 of Tesco Extra stores.

This is the first time for Tesco to sell vinyl albums since CDs was the most common format when Tesco began selling music in the 90s. But in the past years, it has been noticed that the vinyl album format is gradually gaining attention. According to reports, sales of music in this format have increased by more than 50 percent in the previous year.

Although streaming music has increased in 2014 by 78 percent, vinyl has affected the sales of other music formats such as downloads and CDs. Downloading music has reduced by 9 percent while CDs sales dropped 6.5 percent in 2014.

Michael Mulligan works in Tesco as their person for sourcing music. He said that in the previous year, Tesco started selling record decks in their largest stores, with sales that look very promising.

He thinks that providing their loyal buyers with music in vinyl format to play in their record decks is simply a good idea. He added that selling Iron Maiden's latest album is clearly the best way to add vinyl music format into their stores.

They predict that the demand for Iron Maiden's Book of Souls will be as high as the iconic British band's last album, The Final Frontier. The album is considered as Iron Maiden's most successful one to date. The Final Frontier topped the charts in 28 countries including the United Kingdom.

Mulligan added that if the sales are successful, Tesco would most probably plan on selling other vinyl albums before the year comes to a close.