Annual sales of vinyl records in the UK have surpassed one million for the first time in almost two decades. Releases by Arctic Monkeys, Pink Floyd, and Royal Blood, as well as the annual Record Store Day, helped push vinyl sales into figures not seen since 1996.
As the BBC reports, while many outlets have reported on the recent resurgence of the once abandoned format, the newly released figures mark a largely unexpected boom for an industry now considered to have been supplanted almost entirely by digital.
According to label trade body the BPI, the best-selling vinyl album of the year to date is 2013’s AM by Arctic Monkeys, though this week’s best-seller is David Bowie’s Nothing Has Changed.
A spokesperson for the BPI speaking to NME also cited Royal Blood and Record Store Day, which sees bands and artists issuing limited edition vinyl releases, as helping to drive the sales to figures unseen since the height of Britpop, which reportedly drove 1,083,206 sales.
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Earlier this week, Pink Floyd’s The Endless River became the fastest-selling vinyl release since 1997 and therefore the fastest-selling vinyl of the century. Meanwhile, the Official Chart Company has told the BBC it will soon launch a weekly vinyl chart.
“In an era when we’re all talking about digital music, the fact that these beautiful physical artefacts are still as popular as they are is fantastic,” said Martin Talbot, managing director of the Official Charts Company.
“It’s really remarkable. We’re seeing it come back as a significant earner for the music industry as well,” he told BBC Radio 5 live’s Wake Up To Money. “Only five years ago this business was worth around £3m a year. This year it’s going to be worth £20m.”
However, it’s important to note that industry experts still expect vinyl to remain a niche market. In fact, Pink Floyd’s record was set thanks to just 6,000 sales. To put that in context, earlier this week, One Direction celebrated hitting one billion total streams on Spotify.
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“I think it’s sort of a hipster thing,” one shopper at the iconic Rough Trade East record store off Brick Lane in East London told the BBC. “Things that were cool decades ago, but fell out of fashion, are making a comeback.”
One survey released back in April by the ICM Group seemingly highlights this sentiment, after they discovered that 15 percent of physical music, whether vinyl, CD, and increasingly, tape, was bought with no intention of the buyer ever listening to it.
Asked what he attributed the rise in vinyl sales to, Nigel House, co-founder of the Rough Trade retail chain, told the BBC, “Certain styles of music, they need that warmth. They need that feeling. Soul, reggae, hip-hop, even punk – they sound so much better on vinyl.”
