Why the Vinyl Boom is Over - WSJ

Different report here...

Everything You Need to Know About Music Sales in 2017

The Big Surprise: vinyl won’t die and CDs may not fade away anytime soon
Confirming multiple media reports, vinyl album sales have seen a huge increase, up 20.4% over last year. Also proving the medium won’t die, CD album sales went down a paltry 3.9%.

So what’s going on? For starters, Record Store Day had a huge hand in helping push up CD and vinyl sales. On April 22, combined CD and vinyl sales went up 6% compared to last year’s Record Store Day on April 16. That same day, vinyl album sales went up 14% at independent music stores.

Actually, Record Store Day scored the single largest vinyl sales day for the entire year. On April 22, 224,000 more albums were sold over last year.


https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2017/07/05/buzzangle-music-sales-2017/

 

That number seems a little fishy to me. I know several people who own and work in record shops in my area, who will tell you a different story. According to them, 2017 has been their best year yet, and RSD was insane.

 

Up 20% is certainly a different tale!!

 

Jon, THX for bringing us great news!

I haven't digested the entire article yet, but one of my highlights is the graph showing that 51% of album sales were deep catalog units.

While discussing the vinyl unit sales numbers, let's not forget these are only NEW units, and not resales or used ones.

For example, when I buy from a seller here in the SH Forums, AMAZON, Ebay, etc., they were already purchased new by someone and counted in prior years. They may be sold again a time or two, so it's impossible to track the # of actual vinyl records sold, new AND used. That number could be soaring beyond our estimates.....

Just keep spinnin', buying, and enjoying the tunes, friends....

All the best,
GT

 

until it happens it is just speculation. lots of contradictory information. lets see what the numbers reveal.
based on the penetration of vinyl in the music market (a meager 1.3% in 2016) it still has room to grow- and may have just begun.......

2016 music sales (units)
vinyl (6.2 units, growth of 11.5% in '16)
cd (50 units)
digital (404 units)

 

Vinyl 'interest' still seems pretty high around here. By that I mean the stores and bins always seem to attract reasonably strong foot traffic. Record aisles are usually well stocked with plenty of new releases and newer re-issues of classics; first pressing catalog favorites and more obscure catalog titles may be tougher to find now. There have even been times where people have come up to me and started chatting music or about the vinyl format itself -- rarely see that anymore. The cd sections are usually more deserted with an older demographic, and it appears most folks are either buying $5 or less greatest hits compilations or cheap catalog favorites.

 

WSJ is basing their numbers on Nielsen data only.

 

I like the Music On Vinyl gets called out for being ****.

 

My experience here in the Twin Cities tells me the same. Physical media sales here are thriving in the stores. The Electric Fetus is always busy, and is located within a few blocks of the Minneapolis CHEAPO store. Add HYMIE's on Lake Street and ROADRUNNER on Nicollet, plus a bunch of others I haven't even mentioned.....

 

Really nice to read that Gillian is recording to tape first and doing it right. Heartening that she cares.

 

<<<political comment deleted>>>

There are four rather large record stores that I frequent in the Los Angeles/Ventura County area and all are busier than ever, way busier.
One sells used only, no new at all and that place is cranking.

Maybe anecdotal evidence but it's what I see and I've been buying records since the 60's.
The boom may be over for that guy in a suit looking out a 60th floor window after reading his charts and graphs but here on the street it's still alive.

 

Maybe it's just the records that Rainbo is pressing?. I know I run a mile from any vinyl pressed by Rainbo, URP etc.! Operations like those I have mentioned do irreparable damage to the so called 'vinyl boom'.

 

Maybe so. It seems that poor quality control hasn't slowed down many. A friend of mine got into selling vinyl about 10 years ago, and is making good money. He's noticed a lot of teenage boys (ages 14 or 15) dragging their mom's into record stores. Earlier this summer a mom through down over $600 on vinyl for her son.

 

Go Dave and Gillian!!

"before re-releasing more old albums"

Does that mean their catalogue??

Man, I hope they release their back catalogue on lp! That would be the coolest to hear them in all their dynamic glory!

 

I see LPs selling more than CDs, every shop I visit.

 

I started rebuilding a vinyl collection about a year ago. I did so after doing MANY "head to head" listening sessions with vinyl recordings versus digital versions of the recordings on one specific reference system. I heard the difference in the music and it was noticable to me and I very much enjoy the sound of vinyl over digital media - more so with some recordings than others but overall I believe that is a fair statement.

I don't buy vinyl because it's "hip" or "the thing" to be doing, I buy it because I enjoy the sound I get from it. Honestly, listening to vinyl has also focused me back on listening to "albums" and not just "songs". I've discovered many songs on albums I've owned CD's / mp3's of that I never heard when I listened to the digital media. That said, I could have very well "discovered" those songs on the digital media when I owened them but my shift toward vinyl has gotten me back into the midset of listening to an entire album at a time rather than a selection of songs across multiple albums and/or genres.

My hope would be there are enough true vinyl fans out there than "hipsters" and that the true vinyl fans can still support the music industry issuing / re-issuing music in LP format at reasonable prices on an ongoing basis

 

And I still remember getting brand new MFSL lps on the 3 for $10 rack at Turtles back in the day....those were the days but coming again?...doubt it.

 

"Old LPs were cut from analog tapes—that’s why they sound so high quality. But the majority of today’s new and re-issued vinyl albums—around 80% or more, several experts estimate—start from digital files, even lower-quality CDs. These digital files are often loud and harsh-sounding, optimized for ear-buds, not living rooms. So the new vinyl LP is sometimes inferior to what a consumer hears on a CD.
“They’re re-issuing [old albums] and not using the original tapes” to save time and money, says Michael Fremer, editor of AnalogPlanet.com and one of America’s leading audio authorities. “They have the tapes. They could take them out and have it done right—by a good engineer. They don’t.”

To help vinyl buyers, there should have been a clearly coded labelling of the sequence of fabrication like there used to be with the early CDs (AAD, ADD,...). Some vinyl editions do put that information on I suppose. Because of the aleatory nature of vinyl manufacturing quality, I never went back to the stuff. I find it hilarious that punters bought a lot of vinyl because "it just sounds better".

 

I think their dealing with Music On Vinyl was honorable for both sides, so it seems like MOV try and do right by the artists they license. I mean Carole King and Anouk (among others) allowed them to do lots of their catalogue on vinyl.

 

The WSJ isn't the WSJ anymore. It's been Bought and Sold.

Per The Wall Street Journal under Rupert Murdoch

"When Murdoch bought the Journal, he also made clear his desire to reshape the paper to more directly challenge the New York Times, even reportedly sending Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. a letter declaring: “Let the battle begin.” And when it comes to the news agenda, some differences between the two publications have narrowed noticeably, as a result of what the Journal has both chosen to emphasize and de-emphasize under News Corp."

 

Cheapest one on Amazon now is $40.
You got a good deal.

 

If and when the vinyl boom is really over, will it be called the second going of vinyl.

 

MOV to my knowledge have never pressed anything that wasn't given the go ahead by the record company that owned the rights.
This taking it direct from a CD to press a LP has been a problem for years.
MOV have just announced a LP re-release of one of the greatest LPs of all time.
Its so nice to see it getting released for all those that missed it first time around.
I would love to dream the album has been pressed from the original tapes but i doubt it.
Its most likely come from a CD.

 

The problem with new vinyl isn't the mastering, but the physical product. Warps, no-fill, weird center-label issues (like multiple labels). I've got new records that look like somebody dropped something on it.

Start with physical QC, then worry about mastering.

 

I am considering this proposition from another perspective. The information about vinyl unit sales is interesting. But there is something more I would like to consider. I am curious not about the number of units being sold but rather about the number and enthusiasm of the consumers of those units. I began thinking about adoption bell curves. Innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and the last group to adopt a product, laggards. I'm wondering about the consumers' adoption and continued acceptance of vinyl rather than unit sales.

If 100 units were sold, was it 100 records to a single consumer? He'd be considered a "heavy user." Or was it two units to 50 different consumers? And where do they fall on the adoption bell curve? Stepping aside the argument that vinyl "never went away" because this thread is seemingly about a recent boom, I am more curious about the breadth and depth of adoption by consumers who are experiencing vinyl as something new.

From an article from Wired magazine that posits the tradition bell curve model is obsolete (link below):

Markets take off suddenly, or they don’t take off at all. Since adoption is increasingly all-at-once or never, saturation is reached much sooner in the life of a successful new product. So even those who launch these “Big Bang Disruptors” – new products and services that enter the market better and cheaper than established products seemingly overnight – need to prepare to scale down just as quickly as they scaled up, ready with their next disruptor (or to exit the market and take their assets to another industry).

While I don't have any answers about the consumers, the data provided about vinyl unit sales might not tell the whole story. I am reminded of Abraham Maslow's "The Psychology of Science:"

I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.

But I cannot get the dialog between traveling Sheriff Ed Tom Bell and the local sheriff, Marvin, from El Paso in "No Country for Old Men" off my mind. The imminent theme is how much Mexican dope (unit sales) is being distributed north of the border. Substitute "vinyl" for "dope":

Ed Tom: "Dope."
Marvin: "They sell that **** to schoolkids."
Ed Tom: "It's worse than that."
Marvin: "How's that?"
Ed Tom: "Schoolkids buy it.”

I'm more interested not in the number of vinyl units being sold but in the number of different consumers and their adoption levels.

Technology adoption life cycle - Wikipedia

The Faster a New Technology Takes Off, the Harder It Falls