You’ve more than likely read about the vinyl revival that’s been going strong for the past few years. According to recent wholesale figures from ARIA, vinyl sales continue to soar in Australia, going up 38 percent in 2015.

But according to a new report from ICM Unlimited commissioned by the BBC, nearly half of vinyl buyers don’t actually have any intention of listening to the black, plastic discs that they fork out all that money on.

As NME reports, a whopping 41 percent of vinyl buyers told ICM they don’t listen to the vinyl records they buy, whilst seven percent confessed they don’t even own a turntable. Essentially, people are buying vinyl just to say they do.

“I have vinyls in my room but it’s more for decor. I don’t actually play them,” Jordan Katende, a Manchester student, told the BBC, via Mashable. Interestingly, most vinyl consumers buy vinyl editions of albums they’ve already heard.

Half of those polled said they streamed an album online before buying a vinyl copy, which seems to suggest that streaming has boosted sales of the format, which was long thought dead until its recent revival.

Whilst vinyl still makes up a meagre fraction of overall record sales, the upward trend of vinyl sales has been remarkable. As NME notes, sales of the old-school format reached a 26-year high back in 2015.

So it turns out Neil Young was right back in February last year when he said the vinyl revival was simply a fashion statement.

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