Vinyl sales are set to cross the 1 million threshold for the first time in nearly 20 years, according to new Official Charts Company data released by the BPI.

 

2014 sales figures for vinyl have already exceeded those of 2013 (780,674), as reported earlier this month. Sales in the first nine months of this year alone have approached 800,000.

 

The last time vinyl sales passed the million milestone was in 1996, with 1,083,206 units sold. Fugees’ The Score was the best-selling LP, while this year Arctic Monkeys’ AM has held onto the top spot for a second consecutive year.

 

BPI’s head of PR, Lynne McDowell said: “Vinyl may once have been considered a by-product of a bygone era but it is now well and truly a flourishing format making a come-back in a digital age. In an increasingly-digitised world, it appears that music fans still crave a tangible product that gives them original artwork, high audio quality, and purity of sound.

 

“Vinyl enthusiasts are now able to enjoy the renaissance of the format with a string of releases being made available on the format from emerging and established acts. From Record Store Day and Amazon Autorip to Listening Parties and initiatives like Secret 7”, there have never been more opportunities explore the magic that vinyl can offer.”

...am I going nuts or has there been some sort of story about vinyl being on the rise for every single year for at least the last decade?

...am I going nuts or has there been some sort of story about vinyl being on the rise for every single year for at least the last decade?

 

Maybe because it has been on the rise every single year for the last decade :P

Well yeah, that would make sense :blush: I've never quite understood why though, as it seems to be completely contradicted by the fact there's less and less actual places to buy records every year - vinyl sales are rising but record shops themselves are closing all the time.

 

On the BPI's website there's figures for every year since 1996, but that's just even more confusing as there's a massive leap from 2012 to 2013 where it almost doubles? How can things suddenly go from 388,000 to 780,000 in the space of a year?

Ok now I'm absolutely mystified. BPI's page says the lowest year for vinyl in recent times was 2007, with 205,000 sales.

 

Which I thought seemed odd as the "vinyl revival" stories were definitely around by then, and sure enough here's a news article from the same year claiming vinyl sales are soaring, when the BPI seems to indicate they were in fact slipping pretty much every year since the 90s: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/155...e-in-sales.html

 

Forgive me for sounding slightly obsessive about it, but it's a story that seems to keep re-appearing every year and I've always been a bit suspicious of it as it never seems to make any sense - there's no obvious surge in vinyl on the high street, you haven't even been able to buy record players for the best part of 20 years, so where's it all coming from and who's suddenly purchasing them?

Well Record Store Day started in 2008 which could probably account for the rise since then - as for the rest of your post I'm not sure either!

Who says you can't buy record players any more? You can (and in any case, I'm still using the one I bought in 1997).

You can and vinyls moving to the fore front in hmv and similar places from what I see in the high street!

Ok now I'm absolutely mystified. BPI's page says the lowest year for vinyl in recent times was 2007, with 205,000 sales.

 

Which I thought seemed odd as the "vinyl revival" stories were definitely around by then, and sure enough here's a news article from the same year claiming vinyl sales are soaring, when the BPI seems to indicate they were in fact slipping pretty much every year since the 90s: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/155...e-in-sales.html

 

Forgive me for sounding slightly obsessive about it, but it's a story that seems to keep re-appearing every year and I've always been a bit suspicious of it as it never seems to make any sense - there's no obvious surge in vinyl on the high street, you haven't even been able to buy record players for the best part of 20 years, so where's it all coming from and who's suddenly purchasing them?

The article from 2007 is referring to 7" vinyl single sales. Sales of 7" vinyl singles rose to an almost decade long high around the mid 2000s - annual sales were just above 1m per year in the period 2005 to 2007 - before falling back. They are now rising once again though this is from an historic low of 96,000 in 2012 to 127,000 in 2013.

 

If anyone is interested, here are retail vinyl sales from 2000 for 7" and 12" singles, in million units

 

YEAR 7" ----- 12"

2000 0.201 - 4.012

2001 0.179 - 3.962

2002 0.265 - 3.469

2003 0.401 - 2.814

2004 0.631 - 2.598

2005 1.073 - 2.076

2006 1.046 - 1.252

2007 1.040 - 0.803

2008 0.486 - 0.254

2009 0.222 - 0.110

2010 0.152 - 0.067

2011 0.123 - 0.063

2012 0.096 - 0.055

2013 0.127 - 0.088