Retrobloke News and Update Information
22nd August 2008
7” Singles Go Live!!
After months of sorting, photographing, grading and listing, the 7” Singles have finally gone live on the site.
There are over 6000 singles in total, and they include all types of music. It’s meant the introduction of over fifty new sections, and we’ve updated all the section graphics too. That now gives a total of over 12,000 records online, and these singles have never been listed anywhere before, indeed, only around 5% were taken out of our London shop, the rest have just been accumulated in storage over the past ten years, awaiting this site to finally find its feet.
If you’re pleased the singles have been added, you’ll be even more pleased to know we have thousands yet to add. Now that the huge task of getting the singles sections opened is complete, updates will be much faster, so keep in touch with the site, or request updates by emailing retrobloke@aol.com
Another addition to the site is the new ‘Super Index’ Page, which gives you a single page of links to every section on the site. Because of our shop-style lay out, this will hopefully help browsing by putting all the sections into one place. Click Here to check it out.
We’ve had some comments about the lack of back buttons at the end of pages, in fact, if you look at the bottom and top of each page you’ll see there is an ebay style ‘breadcrumb’ page system, meaning you can click back to the previous section, and its parent/s very easily from each page.
So, hope you enjoy seeing the singles, and more updates coming soon.
11th August 2008
Singles Getting Nearer!
We are just working on completing the huge Soul section of 7” Singles for the site, then we’ll be ready to go live with all the singles. Huge thanks for your patience, and we promise it will be well worth the wait!
01st August 2008
Seven Inch Singles Almost Ready!
For well over two months we’ve been beavering away on our 7” Singles, photographing, listing and grading them. We have already listed over 6000 in total, matching the number of LPs and 12” on the site.
We still have to create new sections for them to go into, and put them into some kind of order on the site, which will take a couple of weeks, but we should definitely have the Singles live on the site by the end of August. <phew!!>
99% Of these singles have never been offered for sale anywhere before. We buy so many collections in our shop, that much of our stock has been in storage for some years. If you want to be the first to see these 6000 singles, email us and we’ll get in touch as soon as the update goes live.
13th May 2008
Another Huge Update
Over 1000 more LPs added, mainly in the sections missed out last time round. This pushes us to well over 6000 available LPs and 12” Singles on the site. Most sections have been updated, but the biggest additions are in the following sections:
Soul & R&B - Big update - Records added to all sections
Disco & Funk - Lots more 12” Singles, which have now been split between 70s & 80s. Some rare LPs too.
50s & 60s - More rare 50s LPs, and a big boost to our Elvis Presley section which adds another page.
Classic Rock - A sprinkling of nice LPs throughout the section
Metal - Section Doubled in size, with multiple pages for 80s and 90s LPs, and 80s 12” Singles.
Blues - More records added to all sections.
Jazz - Several hundred LPs added, expanding and adding pages to 1960s Jazz and Jazz Fusion.
Hip Hop - A few new 12s and LPs
Indie Alternative - A good update with lots more interesting LPs. Also new sections for ‘Smiths’ and ‘Nirvana’
Electronica - More hard to find LP added, creating an additional page.
Country - Primarily Male country artists added, with additional page.
Reggae - Expansion of 12” Single section, now three pages. New LPs too.
Punk - A sprinkling of additional LPs and 12s
Comedy - More in all sections, 60s & 70s comedy now split into multiple pages.
World Music - Some 1950s Brazillian 10” LPs added
Soundtracks - Huge update with 100s more LPs. New sections include Bollywood and Soundtrack Compilations.
We are now going to move on and create the 7” Single sections, this will take the next few weeks, before returning with the next batch of LPs.
30th April 2008
HUGE LP Update
Ok, the plan to upload weekly didn’t play out, instead we have revamped multiple sections and added over 2000 LPs to the site, pushing us close to 6000 available records in total.
Most sections have been updated slightly, but the major additions are in these categories:
50s & 60s
The Cliff, Roy Orbison and the Who get their own sections, the 1950s Rock and Roll section has doubled in size. There are now three pages of 1960s groups LPs, three pages of 1960s Male artists, and four pages of 1960s female artists.
Rock & Pop
Huge growth in this section, which has now been split into 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. The seventies section has 100s of LPs added, and new major artist categories for Elton John and David Bowie. Huge expansion in the 1980s section too, with hundreds of 12” Singles added, and multiple pages of 1980s LPs.
Classic Rock
100s more Classic rock LPs have been added in all section. 1970s Rock Groups has now expanded to seven pages, the biggest individual section on the site.
Easy & Exotica
Compared to the poor offerings on rival sites, Easy & Exotica has become something of a Retrobloke speciality. To celebrate, we’ve added 100s more exciting LPs, and added new sections for Fun Fair & Carnival, and Transport related. If you’re looking for something weird and wonderful, this is the section for you!
Folk
A huge update has added 100s of Folk LPs to this section, and created new sections for Traditional Irish, Scottish and Welsh folk music.
The current plan is to add another big update in the next couple of weeks, before moving on to 7” Singles. To continue building this site at this pace does require customer interest, so if you like the site, do please tell your friends, and help us grow even faster!! More news soon.
2nd April 2008
Site Re-Launch Goes Live
No, we haven’t been sitting idle since the last update went live. We have been slaving away on getting the site filled with quality vinyl. This hugest of all site updates has just gone live today, and now pushes our inventory to just over 3500 LPs.
All items have photos, and all the sections now have stock in them. While some sections are more empty than others, you should be able to find plenty of exciting records here. There are also some pretty interesting new sections, check out our expanded Easy Exotica and Soundtrack sections.
More updates are going to follow quickly, with a 1970s Rock & Pop batch currently being readied for the end of next week. If you would like to be updated when the music you like gets added, just email and let us know.
5th February 2008
HUGE Soul, Disco & Funk Update
Ok, we’re finally getting into our stride, today sees the first of our themed updates. From now on we intend to update particular sections all in one go, so anyone checking this news page, can see whether a specific section has had new stock since they last had a look. The first of these big updates covers two sections, Soul & R&B, and Disco & Funk.
There are several hundred new records added to these sections, the Disco & Funk 12” Section now has three full pages. Disco LPs has grown too, and there’s a new section, Soul & R&B Compilation LPs, which includes a near full run of Street Sounds LPs. You’ll also find a big jump in our Soul LP stock, in all three sections, 1950s/60s, 1970s and 1980s.
We’ll now try to work in rotation, so while it will be a while till we get around to updating the Soul & Disco again, we’ll have a big boost to another section very soon.
1st February 2008
Site Issues and another New Update
The past two days have seen near constant problems with our shop section and checkout system. Thankfully, the issues were finally resolved this morning, and now the site is fully functioning and better than ever!
To Celebrate the end of our server problems, we’ve added another batch of interesting LPs. It brings the total number of LPs on the site to just over 1350. Still plenty more to do then ;o)
More updates very soon.
23rd January 2008
Huge Update - 500 LPs added
The site is now fully up and running again, and tests show that is now running around 20% faster than before. The new update includes all kinds of music, all sections have had items added, but there is most significant additions to:
1950s & 60s LPs (Whole new page of Female vocal LPs)
Classic Rock LPs (Whole new page of 1970s Rock)
Rock & Pop LPs
Soundtrack LPs
There are also several new sub-sections for different types of music.
Rockabilly LPs (Within the 1950s & 60s LPs Section)
NuWave LPs (Within the Punk LP Section)
Gospel LPs (Within the Soul & R&B LP Section)
Windham Hill LPs (Within the Electronic/New Age Section)
We hope to have another big update soon, as we have thousands more exciting LPs ready to add.
22nd January 2008
While this news section may have been quiet, we’ve been beavering away on our stock inventory. However, when testing the increased stock online, it has resulted in a major slow down. The remedy is to move the inventory part of the site to a new internet location, but this means we have just over 24 hours of down time while the site relinks itself. This news section will be updated as soon as normal service is resumed.
7th September 2007
The latest batch of items has just gone live. This time it includes lots of rarities, with big additions to The Beatles, Elvis Presley and Rolling Stones sections. There is also more stock added to the Classic Rock section and a new Rock n Roll section alongside 1960s Beat.
There are a few other interesting updates, a few more soundtracks and some rather funky Blow Fly exotica LPs. The new update also pushes our stock number over the 500 mark. It’s not a massive selection, but at least it’s starting to be worth a browse!
More updates soon.
4th September 2007
Our third update has now gone live, nearly doubling the amount of available records within our shop. Most sections now at least have some records in them, some sections have good selections. For example the soundtrack and comedy sections are growing nicely, while the 1950s & 1960s section is set to expand with more categories very soon.
There are now over 400 items available, and in the next update we intend to add some of the beautiful high value rarities we have been been saving up for the past few years.
We have still had no comments or opinion about the lay-out of the site, if you think we are moving in the right direction, or think we are doing things badly, we’d really love to hear about it. You can email us by clicking here.
14th August 2007
The second update has just gone live. We have doubled the number of items, but it’s still pretty sparse. We hope to have another batch of items uploaded in the next few days. Currently, Soundtracks is the biggest section.
11th August 2007
After many weeks of hard work, the new site has today gone live. The hardest part has been building and routing all the
various sections. Hopefully this makes things easier to browse for, but we are always open to second opinions, so if you
think the site is good this way, or could be better a different way, do email us.
There are currently only a small sprinking of items in the sections, just under two hundred. These items are of course all available for sale, and work is continuing now on building the database. We hope to have around 5000 items on this site
by Christmas 2007.
A huge thanks to all those customers who’ve kept in touch with this site, from the ‘List Heavy’ 1990s version, right through to the Ebay shop linked site we have been running for the past couple of years. Finally we’ve seen the light, and are going to work hard on making Retrobloke.com one of the best places online to buy records.
More updates will appear on this page as the site gets updated.