While the pandemic has stifled the music industry, fans continue to support artists in one of the most traditional ways possible – by purchasing vinyl!
It’s a hipster’s dream – the ultimate experience in sound quality, cover art (a hefty 12 inch makes for a lovely piece of visual art above the mantlepiece), and the sheer shopping experience.
So many amazing discoveries come from vinyl browsing, more so than CD browsing, and it definitely makes for a more enjoyable experience than sifting through the digital mess of streaming platforms.
In the first 6 months of 2021 alone, a whopping 19.2 million vinyl records were sold. This overtook the record for CDs, which sat at a close 18.9 million, according to global entertainment analytics firm, MRC Data.
But the overtaking has been a long time coming. In 2020, vinyl championed CDs in annual revenue in the U.S. for the first time in 34 years! And that’s just the beginning.
Over the next 6 months, the number of vinyl sold went up by a whopping 108 per cent.
Wowzers! That’s a lot of audiophiles out there!
We contributed to those sales! Love vinyl. But also, people still buy CDs??
— Kate Ottavio Kent (@KOttavioKent) July 14, 2021
Even more astounding, the records that are selling particularly well are all relatively recent.
Top sellers include Taylor Swift’s Evermore, which had the highest single-week vinyl sales in MRC Data’s 30-year history, bringing in over 100,000 copies sold, alongside other modern greats like Kendrick Lamar’s Good Kid M.A.A.D. City, and Billie Eilish’s When We Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
How dead is physical album sales?
Vinyl is outpacing CD sales in 2022.
— Billy Dukes (@billydukes) July 14, 2021
Vinyl isn’t the only trend buzzing through the music industry right now. NFTs, a.k.a Non-Fungible Tokens, have emerged as a cool new revenue stream for artists in the last couple of years. Earlier, we published an article on NFTs in this regard.
From February to April this year, the industry has brought in around $55.7 million from this bizarre new medium, expanding its income potential in an exciting new way!
