Well, the ultimate disproof of this conspiracy theory is that IKEA discontinued the Trissa box right as the vinyl resurgence was revving up and has yet to bring out any kind of replacement.
Ha! Agent provacateurs? Yeah, I've seen them at their stores. They smell like cinnamon and have white frosting on them.
Ha! Ikea has their own agent provocateurs creating conflict within their own stores. The smell and thought of Swedish meatballs and cinnamon rolls are not compatible when thinking of each at the same time. While I'm walking the maze through the store I'm thinking cinnamon rolls (who wouldn't?). But before I make it to the cinnamon rolls that are by the exit I must first walk by the restaurant and I smell the Swedish meatballs. I'm there thinking "I need to have a cinnamon roll after I buy my Expedit" and at that moment as I walk by the restaurant I get a whiff of the Swedish meatballs and am repulsed. The desire for cinnamon rolls and Swedish meatballs at the same time is not compatible. I become repulsed by even the thought of cinnamon rolls. My stomach and nose instantly go "No!!!! that is not right". I can't do it. I can't have both. And the thought of both means I can't have either. So I walk out of the store pushing a cart with an Expedit but no meatballs and no cinnamon rolls.
On a serious note, the Expedit being perfect for vinyl was a lucky coincidence and it took Ikea many, many years to cotton on to the fact that many customers were using them for LPs, they were very slow off the mark with the idea that their units could be used to store records and that it was a decent sized market.
As You know IKEA is a Swedish company, it was actually started very close to where I grew up. Vinyl in Sweden is extremely low in volume, there is very little demand at all really for storing records in IKEA shells. There is in principle no vinyl resurgence here. And Ham Sandwich, those You are talking about is not Swedish meatballs.
What we've got over here have been Americanized. They're not the same thing. The meatballs are good though. Just don't think of cinnamon rolls as you eat them. Now, if only Ikea had Swedish beer... Give me meatballs and beer and I'd forget all about cinnamon rolls.
My sister married a Swedish meatball! He is slowly and secretly developing a culture of vinyl storage within their household by casually purchasing beginner turntables for my niece and nephew. Then, when they need some storage, BAM! A trip to Ikea. Then, when the cheap turntables chew up the records, they have to replace them. The kids now have too much invested in the hipster ideal, that to revert to iTunes would be disastrous to their carefully modeled personas. Out come the debit cards, and BAM! More money to fund the "vinyl resurgence," which of course is nothing more than a way for IKEA to launder money through shell corporations (I won't say who they are...we all know) that sign artists who espouse the benefits of vinyl. If you dig deep enough, you will discover that RSD was indeed cooked up by top executives at IKEA. More vinyl sold = more storage units sold. It is all so clear!
Yes, there are many very good beer here, many US beer are very good too, I have tested a few. And we shouldn´t eat what we don´t like. The thing is much what we don´t like at first, can later become a real treat. Like 'Öländska Kroppkakor' and 'Surströmming', which many don´t like at first. But later it´s hard to live without. Nearly all food here goes very well together with 'Brännvin' and 'Öl', (Vodka and Beer)
Don't take my comments about the meatballs seriously. The story that is linked in the first post is from April 1st. April Fools Day. My comments about the meatballs being agent provocateurs against the cinnamon rolls is all in jest. Like an April Fools Day prank.
But why has vinyl madness bypassed Sweden? (Reading the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo books and watching the Annika Bengtzon: Crime Repoter TV series made me think that Sweden really is a very different place...)
I´m sure some are still playing records, like I do, and some increase in record playing there might be. But it´s not any hype, most just play digital files. Most places are different places. Where I live is very different from other certain cities.
They're like American "pizza", or American "Chinese food" ... IKEA hot dogs used to be pretty good! (I haven't been in a long while.)
I might have underestimated the vinyl resurgence here, maybe it´s bigger than I initially thought. So there is one, but I don´t have any statistics about sales and so, but obviously it has increased quite a bit. Used records are normally very cheap though, if not collectors items. I buy records on Swedish ebay, and records that I want are plentyful and cheap, in EX condition. Of course the ones I usually want are operas from the 50s-60s. But downloads and CDs seems like the main thing for most, I don´t think many young people play records or CDs, as far as I can tell.
I'm pretty sure that the vinyl resurgence is planned. It's almost everywhere you look. On commercials, in television shows. On the final show of The Voice, one of the contestants sang on a giant spinning turntable. On The Real Housewives Of New York, one of the rich biddies talked of staying home with her young boyfriend (who was bearded) and listening to records all day.
"... the whistle blower who chose to remain anonymous to avoid retribution from IKEA death squads." I was shaking terribly when I read that.