The UK side of Vagrant Records are currently selling albums at £5 – this includes artists such as Paul Westerberg and Dashboard Confessional among others!  Now that’s what I call fine prices.

Their online store is here (http://www.resonancestore.com/vagrant/)

Rough Trade have launched an album club, where each month they’ll send you a copy of what they consider the best album of the month, for a price of course.  A great idea, but at £12  a month, for CD which may not appeal to your taste (after all the existing selections range from KT Tunstall to the Arcade Fire), it is a lot of money to gamble – particularly if you can buy the album elsewhere on the net for less. Admittedly the album will be sent to you with a nice set of liner notes etc. 

If the CDs had been compilations of the month’s best releases and two thirds of the price then I would have seriously considered joining as that would encourage me (and probably many others) to buy albums from lesser known artists discovered though the compilation (something that Uncut’s cover CD helps with).

If you would like to know more then go here.