Vinyl Outsells CDs For the First Time in Decades

Clean better...

 

Aside from that, a lot of new sets sell out in a ridiculously short period of time. If they aren't pressed, they can't sell.

 

When CD’s were dominant, look at where The Beatles and Michael Jackson charted...

 

No cleaning necessary with digital.

 

I think there will always be a market for a physical product. However I don’t think there is enough of a market for two. CDs may still trump vinyl in terms of units sold but the difference is CD is going the wrong way and vinyl the right way. In the not too distant future I can see vinyl overtaking CD in the units sold stakes as well. If digital is your thing, then streaming is now the better option.

 

I think every year for the past 10 years someone posts a link to an article about how vinyl has surpassed CD sales.

 

I'm waiting for CDSD (CD Store Day)!

 

Where’s the reward in that?

 

That vinyl rose in sales without Record Store Day is kind of amazing. After all is said and done, vinyl sales will probably rise at least 10% over the previous year, after 2020 is over with.

Who knows how badly CDs will crater.

 

It's about the style, not the year. There is no style from the 1940s that was popular in the 1980s. The 1980s *did* have huge 1960s back catalog sales, though.

 

Oh, this misleading story again that disregards units sold. But it's like I said in previous threads, vinyl sales are boosted primarily by reissues of titles long out of print on the format where as the CD counterpart is or has been available for a long time and most people who want them already have them. If the roles were reversed and the LP's have been available constantly for 3 decades and the CD hasn't, then CD sales would be bolstered.

 

I was listening to a Bob Lefsetz podcast the other day with Steve Boom. VP of Amazon Music. Very interesting podcast from Jun 2018. He mentions that in 2013/2014, that for physical music product sales, 80% of Amazon customers spend $15 or less per year. Only the top 10% of customers were approaching an average spend of $10 per month (he was equating it with the cost of streaming per month).

I thought that number was staggering. As one of the biggest retailers I would've thought there would not be such a disparity in those statistics. He went on to mention that historically, 50% of the buying public in America never spent money on music, consuming it through free means, like radio.

In context, I was left feeling that physical music sales were more of a fluke even in the good times.

As always, when these statistics come out I ask my friend about them. He works in the distribution business and for the most part, their sales have been pretty good and not really any lower than last year outside of a couple of months when Covid talk was at it's peak. But he mostly sells to outside the US and Canada.

 

Great sounding music all of the time! I own over 10, 000 lps I've collected over 6 decades. You can't sell me on the problems with vinyl. I lived with them for years.
Once good sounding digital was achieved, there was no returning to archaic days of vinyl.

 

Your not in Rhode Island are you?

 

Yeah, a definite issue. I dont want to get into a debate about no good music being made anymore. But the late 60's thru early 90's is where the majority of the best stuff of our current music scene originated. There is still good music being made, but just looking at the lineup of artists making music in the 60's thru 90's, there is no comparison to today. A sad fact, and one that the music industry as a whole has to come to grips with. My girlfriend's son, who is 19, only listens to Bowie and the Stones. Where are the modern equivalents? Again, Im not saying that no good music is made anymore. Just far less of it, and with much lower priority industry wide.

Also, while digital recording can produce excellent results, for a large part it is being used and abused in a way that does not give incentive for anyone to run out and buy the new vinyl record for the best listening experience. This needs to change, but it's above my pay grade to even think about how. And I think the big labels would prefer that vinyl just dies out and everyone moves to streaming anyway.

 

No

 

Are you like this guy?



I just... I can’t...

 

Who cares? As long as I can buy albums and box sets with silent backgrounds and no warping I'll continue to buy three times the amount of music on CD, thank you.

In my experience all modern vinyl is substandard and over-priced. I have spent thousands on a decent turntable and still own over a thousand LPs. I always enjoyed the vinyl experience so I'm not a "digital only" buyer.

With that said I'd feel like a fool parting with more money to buy LPs when it's clearly an inferior media and quite unnecessary today.

 

Another factor to consider, especially in this age of gargantuan cd and vinyl boxed set prices - piracy.

 

And we're paying for it....
Yes I know this will be getting pulled off here.

 

Although all that might be true, that has absolutely nothing to do with this thread or the raw statistics that have been quoted by me and others regarding the music corporations selling physical media.

This thread is only about music companies selling their wares, not about Joe Sixpack selling his second hand copy of Boston's self titled debut album on CD or 8-track tape.

 

you clearly don't know anything about statistics. the variables have changed enough to make a simple 'apples to apples' comparison completely meaningless.
They don't even make any reference to population. The best statistics are the ones that have measured sales per household.

The "raw numbers" is about as useful as comparing home run baseball yearly stats for a team that played in two different home ballparks.

 

Ya this kind of left me a little off. A common huckster. No wonder why the comments were turned off.

 

CDs are clearly in big trouble, down 45%. LP sales growth year over year is dropping fast and will soon turn negative, only 2.3% growth this year. This isn't good for anyone.

Streaming subscription prices are sure to go up once physical media are gone.

 

I'm a cd guy these days, but I have a lot of records.... yes, when it comes to records I am like Henry.... my wife won't touch my records... and I've seen her cd's, so I encourage her not to touch my cd's either