I recently heard that vinyl records were making a comeback. I thought, okay so maybe they are selling a little more then they used to for nostalgic sake. Then I dug a little deeper and was amazed to see that in the first half of 2014, vinyl record sales have increased 40% over last year. They are currently on track to sell at least 8 Million units for the year. This is even after selling 6 million units last year which itself was a sizeable increase over the year before. If you look at the numbers, vinyl albums are now selling 10X more units then they were selling 20 years ago. What the heck is going on here?
Like many I was a big "record" buyer back in the day, amassing a decent collection of records from artists like The Carpenters, Elton John, Barry Manilow, Air Supply, Kiss, Led Zeppelinand more. Yes you heard right, I said Kiss & Led Zeppelin in the same sentence as Barry Manilow, Air Supply & The Carpenters. While growing up, I LOVED so many different styles of music and still do today. If a song has a great melody or hook, then I don't really care what style it is, I wanna hear it!
Still, it is amazing that vinyl record sales are increasing at such a high rate, and at the same time sales of CDs and even MP3 downloads are decreasing. If you look behind the numbersm you'll see that some of this phenomena is due to the nostalgic buyers picking up a newly printed version of masterpieces from the past (aka. The Beatles Abbey Road). However even more of the trend is coming from newer artists like Jack White, the Artic Monkeys and Beck, each of who are releasing their music on the vinyl format in addition to CDs and online. We've always known that the quality of vinyl records far surpasses the CD and online MP3s. When you listen to digital music you just can't hear the warmth and all instrumentation nuances when you've cut out part of the audio spectrum in order to get it down to less "bits".
Buying your music on vinyl also gives you much larger artwork (remember album covers) that you can admire for years to come. Inside the album or on the back cover you'll also find a myriad of information about the artists, songwriters, producers and anyone else involved in making the record. So if you don't mind the occasionally scratched record or having to pick up the needle and put it back on the song you want, then vinyl record sales may continue to increase at least for a little while.
For some background info on this phenomena I recommend this article at Qz.com (Quartz) entitled Quartz: The Music Industrys New Fangled Growth Business - Vinyl Records. In addition to some interesting details it also offers some great statistics on what's going on. I also managed to come across two very good short documentaries on YouTubeon why vinyl records are making a comeback. If you remember albums and want to reminisce or if you've heard about records and want to learn more I highly recommend you check these both out:
That's all she wrote for today folks - I'll be back tomorrow for Sunday hits, where we talk about some of our favorite songs on the radio (and online) today. Until then have yourself a grrreat Saturday nite!
Music, Love & Laughter,
Vincent James @ LoveSongs.com
p.s. KEEP MUSIC ALIVE Day #12 - Please visit our first post from Tuesday July 1st for more information about our mission
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