Vinyl sales at 15 year high (Skill Zone News, 24-Apr-2013)
Vinyl sales at 15 year high
Vinyl records, once the staple of the music industry, looked doomed in the face of the more robust compact cassette, the bullet proof CD, and the new age digital download, but in recent years it has made a resurgence. Figures from IFPI show that sales in 2012 were marginally higher than sales in 1997.
Anyone who grew up with the black plastic dinner plates of pop music will surely miss the marvellous covers and artwork of the vinyl albums, but really appreciate that you can play the digital media without the hiss and crackles of dust in the groove, and love its immunity to scratches and damage. Yet vinyl is showing a revival. Its fans claim vinyl sounds better. The argument is that vinyl uses analogue recording so it is able to produce a richer, warmer, fuller, more accurate sound, compared to the harshness of the digital recording. I can't agree with those claims, and I suspect its more to do with posturing and image than it is to do with sound quality. Still, if there is a demand there for vinyl, musicians should support it.
The IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) reports that vinyl sales were globally worth $166m in 1997, declined over the next ten years to an all time low of $36m in 2006, but have climbed steadily since and last year reached $171m. However, to put that into context, global music sales for all media is about $16.4 billion. The top selling vinyl album of 2012 was Coexist by UK Indie band, The XX. The second placed vinyl album in the 2012 charts was Ziggy Stardust, a re-release of 1972 album by David Bowie.
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