| LATEST NEWS: How poor are ALDI’s April 2026 vinyl special buys? |
Father’s Day looms down under, which means ALDI is once again preparing to flog vinyl records of low quality to undiscerning buyers. Here’s what you need to know about the latest special buy batch, which goes on sale from Wednesday 20 August 2025.
- ALDI is charging $17.99 per disc, which is the same as it charged in its most recent record sale back in April.
- As usual, most of these are bootleg recordings of radio broadcasts, taking advantage of European copyright laws which mean that radio broadcasts more than 20 years old are deemed to be public domain. That’s not the case in Australia, but there’s nothing to stop ALDI bringing in grey market imports. It’s unethical and the artist won’t see a cent, but it’s not technically illegal.
- In another familiar tactic, ALDI is also selling a turntable at the same time: this time a $99.99 3-speed “turntable with speakers” in black or walnut.
Here’s a summary of what’s on offer. To a greater extent than ever before, ALDI is selling records in this batch that it has flogged before (6 out of the 10 titles), so when that’s happened I have linked to the previous write-up here in the ‘New@ALDI’ column. “Radio bootleg” means as described above, a grey market copyright loophole import. “Licensed” means this is actually the original recordings (but also means you won’t see anything much from after 1960).
| Artist | Title | Type | New@ALDI? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elvis Presley | Elvis At The Movies | Licensed | No |
| Faith No More | Live . . . Hollywood 1990 | Radio bootleg | Yes |
| Green Day | Greatest Hits . . . Live | Radio bootleg | Yes |
| Johnny Cash | Folsom Prison Blues | Licensed | No |
| Led Zeppelin | Live In Scandinavia | Radio bootleg | No |
| Pearl Jam | Greatest Hits . . . Live | Radio bootleg | No |
| Various | Rock ‘N’ Roll Classics | Licensed | Yes |
| The Police | Greatest Hits Live | Radio bootleg | No |
| The Ramones | Greatest Hits . . . Live | Radio bootleg | Yes |
| U2 | Greatest Hits . . . Live | Radio bootleg | No |
Now let’s learn a little more about the dross ALDI hasn’t flogged before.
Faith No More, Live . . . Hollywood 1990. This radio broadcast set is much bootlegged, but this particular cover and (incomplete) track selection appears new. I guess at least it’s actually a single concert recording, not a hotch-potch, but any fan is likely to already have better versions and casual listeners could just stick to Spotify for the hits.
Green Day, Greatest Hits . . . Live. Oh dear. This appears to be another “new” release (in the sense of cover art and track selection), and reading the tea leaves, it’s a compilation of (mostly early) concert appearances from multiple broadcasts. A casual Green Day listener isn’t even going to recognise most of this.
The Ramones, Greatest Hits . . . Live. This particular compilation/packaging doesn’t seem to have existed before August 2025, but the cover art tells us it’s a mixed bag of radio broadcasts from between 1977-1982. Admittedly, that’s when you’d want a Ramones recording from. But there’s plenty of official live material from multiple eras if you want to go that route.
Various, Rock ‘N’ Roll Classics. This one actually does what it says on the packaging. Original recordings from Elvis, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Bill Haley, the Shirelles – it’s a solid 1950s snapshot if that’s your thing. Though I wouldn’t take that “Remastered for vinyl” label seriously as an indicator of audio quality.
Bottom line? ALDI’s catalogue email describes these as “fan faves for man caves”. I’d call them “largely bootleg junk that does a disservice to your man cave”. You’d be better off checking out the cheapest thing ALDI sells.
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