Last Shop Standing is a new film focused on the “rise, fall and rebirth of the independent record shop”.

Full of interviews with various record shop owners, Graham Jones’ film – based on his 2009 book of the same name – sounds like a worthy watch. Most intriguing of all, however, is an allegation in the film that might ring true for many FACT readers: that the record industry, keen to promote the CD, deliberately lowered the quality of vinyl pressings in the 1980s.

As Music Week report, Jones suggests that, by the end of the 1980s, “the vinyl that we had was all recycled vinyl. So the actual quality of vinyl recordings had started to diminish. The records were thinner and more flimsy. Everything was designed for us to switch our music collection over to CD”.

Truck Store manager Gary Smith, amongst others, corroborates Jones’ accusation: “Certainly when I began in the early 80s we would get people bringing in five or six copies of the same album back because there’d be a fault in the vinyl. The 70s vinyl seemed to be fine and the 60s vinyl was fine, it’s just that the stuff in the 80s was really thin and not very good quality”.

Music Week subsequently scouted out BPI chairman Tony Wadsworth, who poo-poohed the claims as “frankly absurd”: “The fact of the matter is that CD was a very popular format and vinyl started to reduce for the mass market. But, there is still a passionate niche market for vinyl, which needs to be met”.

As conspiracy theories go, we think it’s got some legs (or, at least, certainly more than our other favourite conspiracy theory of the year). If any of the above piques your interest, take a look at FACT’s guide to setting up an independent record store.