In dollars spent, vinyl outsold cds last year. In units sold, cds outsold vinyl. To state the obvious, unless one finds a heavily discounted title on vinyl one is likely going to spend a premium to purchase it. CDs cost far less than their vinyl counterparts when the same title is issued on both formats. This is sort of the reverse of the mid 1980s when cds carried the premium, though I think the price difference wasn't as great then as it is now.
I know that was true up to 2020, but is that still true? For the first 6 months of 2021 CDs were behind in both dollars AND units. I think CDs are now in terminal decline, and this is the year vinyl beats it in both metrics. As a CD stalwart, it makes me sad, but more and more things are only being released on vinyl and digital now (I embrace digital, but I’ll miss the CD. I hope it gets a hipster revival in a couple years).
Good point. During the first six months of 2021 it does look like vinyl sold 300,000 more units in the U.S. than cd.
Well, I'll be damned. Everything we hear states otherwise. I'm shocked that CDs are still in that kind of demand.
I've bought tons of cd 's and lots of time for new releases I would buy cd and vinyl. I'm already a dinosaur , but with getting a newer car there's no CD player, which forces me to stream . If I'm playing music at home I tend to listen to vinyl which means I'm questiong why am I buying cds anymore. Not having CD players in cars will be the final nail in the coffin for those who where left.
Sounds dicey. I'm guessing other people treated their "car cd's" as well as I did. I could probably offer a "buy 1 get 10 free" deal. (All cd's stuck to "wallet".)
I wasn’t necessarily. But the powers-that-be will kill vinyl too. And probably sooner than the naive wishful thinkers believe. Too much effort, too little profit. If they believed in/supported vinyl for the long-term, they’d be investing in production. All they’re invested in is milking it for all it’s worth in the near-term. Once they’ve killed that goose, they’ll move fully to rented music. I have thousands of CDs and LPs. But when I take emotion out of it, I firmly believe the demise of CD - and vinyl - will be gradual, then sudden.
meh. i can walk into dozens of fully stocked record stores today. 15 years ago? forget about it. plus vinyl keeps growing, and will overtake cds in units sold this year. seems profit just keeps going up. i'm nearing 50, and i'm not worried about vinyl disappearing in my lifetime.
The "powers-that-be" seem to be doing a pretty poor job (allowing a vinyl resurgence, for example), unless they're just, I don't know, businesses making decisions that are sometimes correct and sometimes not, selling to a customer base that is constantly changing (and not always in predictable ways).
Same old tired, naive arguments...vinyl growing (from nothing to barely more than nothing to a bit more than barely more than nothing), over taking CD (wow, that’s awesome), profits going up (really, you have access to label P&L statements? I live in a major metropolitan area and I know of zero FULLY stocked record stores. To me, fully stocked is what a record store looked like in the 70s or 80s. A bunch of used stuff and moderately to very limited new stock is not fully stocked. I also worked in Seattle for about a year a few years and I recall it being pretty much the same, but maybe I’m mistaken. About the only fully stocked stores are the rare places like Ameoba. It’s great you’re not worried, but that’s only because you’re ignoring the obvious.
yep, you're mistaken. fully stocked record stores in seattle (new and used): easy street silver platters (3 locations) sonic boom jive time zion's gate wall of sound spin cycle royal records (just opened this weekend) light in the attic sub pop (in the freakin' AIRPORT) those are all "fully stocked" with used and new stuff (lots of new stuff, not just limited new stock). if you want others that are mostly used you can go to: georgetown records daybreak holy cow singles going steady neptune golden oldies (might be out of commission for a bit, since a garbage truck ran into the store this week) i'm sure you'll find a way to try and tell me i'm wrong, or that i'm imagining all these shops. please, refer to google first before you come back at me.
More wishful thinking. The vinyl resurgence is just a relatively small number of people buying albums. It’s just a niche hobby. They all go through up and down periods. But it requires every part of the vulnerable vinyl chain to be in the game. The vinyl industry has a number of pressure points and one disruption by raw materials suppliers, pressing plants, labels, IP owners, retailers, buyers - and the house of cards will not just fall, it will simply disappear. Just, for example, consider the dominos which would fall if the price of oil doubles or triples? Or what if several of the Alphabet companies start jumping into the deep end of the music industry pool? Or a dozen other possible scenarios?
https://www.amazon.com/Smote-Revers...hild=1&keywords=oh+sees&qid=1634233958&sr=8-1 double lp: 23.99 single cd: 15.29 i could give hundreds of other similar examples.
Oh, please. I’ve been to a few of those. I mean, Sub Pop at the airport? Really? If that’s what you call a fully stocked record store . Even the Newbury Comics stores in New England aren’t what I’d call a fully stocked record store anymore - and they’re Sub Pop on steroids.
Present tense. No offense, but if you’re nearing 50, you can probably barely remember what an actual fully stocked record store is. I’m done derailing this thread. My apologies.
nice of you to pick that one, maybe you should have picked silver platters SODO location instead (clocking in at just under 13,000 square feet, of which about half is vinyl). or easy street, which has a similar footprint. ditto sonic boom. ditto zion's gate. why can't you just admit you're wrong? i'm sorry your metro area sucks as far as record stores are concerned. mine doesn't.
LOL, it's pretty much the truth! I learned this when I started buying vinyl again maybe six years ago, when I'd go down to the local record store and then leave empty handed, because they'd have absolutely nothing on my shopping list. The DC area has a handful of wonderful small record stores that are well intentioned, but high rents and limited space eliminate any possibility of an Amoeba-type mega store opening up in the region. The Sound Garden up in Baltimore is probably the closest thing we have to a large, "fully stocked" record store, but I can only vouch for their CD inventory as I've never bought new vinyl there in person.
Man, it's such a bummer that high rents drove both Crooked Beat and Red Onion from Adams Morgan. The next time I get up to DC, I've gotta stop by HR Records.
It's depressing. I think the only large record store left in San Francisco is Amoeba (yes, I'm aware there are smaller stores). I rarely get there any more and don't know how well they are doing to stocking most/all new releases, but it at least used to be a great store. Not that Target or Best Buy were ever my idea of great places to buy music, but my local Target has zero music. Some locations near me have a small selection, but very small. Same with Best Buy. At least Target still carries cds online; Best Buy stopped carrying those a few years ago. I really long for the days when I could walk into a Tower Records and find every single on the Billboard Hot 100 along with so many current and catalog albums that I could spend hours in the store browsing every week.
That niche Vinyl market has survived over 100 years at this point but i'm sure they'll kill it real soon since the "powers that be" will have had enough sometime "soon"! Saying that, physical selling locations will obviously dwindle but that's to be expected sadly.