When April 13th rolled around, and Record Store Day kicked off for the 12th time, people from all over flocked to their local store. Everyone itching to get their hands on the hottest special edition or limited releases brought out just for the day.
We already knew this year’s Record Store Day was gonna be a bumper year for vinyl. With the steady increase in vinyl sales across the board, 2019 was set to be the biggest one yet. But over in the US, the week of April 13th saw some of the highest record sales in US vinyl sales history.
Record Store Day in the US broke records for vinyl sales. And with the popular media continuing to be on the up and up, it’s only getting better from here.
According to Nielsen Music, Record Store Day 2019 saw a whopping 827,000 vinyl records sold in the US for the week ending April 18th. This puts that week in third place, surpassed only by the Christmas period of 2018. Which is pretty bloody impressive, as Nielsen has been keeping a record of vinyl sales since 1991.
But in even better news, the real winners of this year were independent record stores. This year, indie stores saw 673,000 vinyl records hit their registers, which is a 16% increase on last year’s numbers, and their biggest yet.
As for the best sellers, we cast our eyes and ears back a few decades. A recording of The Grateful Dead’s 1980 Warfield concert scored the top spot in the albums list. Meanwhile, The Rolling Stones’ She’s A Rainbow was the top-selling single in the US.
Overall, old school favourites like Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, Prince and David Bowie dominated the best sellers. With a few more modern faves like Anderson .Paak, Death Grips and Courtney Barnett holding their own in the singles chart.
Well, that pretty much wraps it up for this year. Until next year, happy vinyl listening!
