Tell us if you've heard this one before: Vinyl sales are up. The UK is one of several markets where music in the grooved physical format have seen rapid increases in sales. The Official Charts Company (similar to our own Nielsen Soundscan) has reported that the nation has sold more than one million copies of vinyl records thus far during 2014, marking the first time since 1996 that a million copies of the format have been sold in the region.
"In an era when we're all talking about digital music, the fact that these beautiful physical artifacts are still as popular as they are is fantastic," said Martin Talbot, managing director of the Official Charts Company, perhaps indicating a personal lack of understanding for the format's rise in popularity based on the description as "physical artifacts."
The highest selling vinyl record in the UK this was the Arctic Monkeys' AM, while Pink Floyd's recently released The Endless River became the fastest selling vinyl record in Britain since 1997, moving 6,000 copies in its first week (The Hollywood Reporter doesn't indicate what album set the mark during 1997, although out money's on Radiohead's OK Computer). Jack White's Lazaretto has also been a hot seller in the UK, albeit not as successful as it's been in the United States.
Higher sales totals mean higher dollar amounts of course. It's estimated by the Official Charts Company that sales for the format amounted to $4.7 million during 2009 while the amount will surpass $31 million during 2014. No one should pretend this is going to make up for the losses to CD and digital formats but the music industry will take any good news they can get.
Of course vinyl will get another big boost today (Black Friday) as fans crowd independent record stores as part of Record Store Day's Back to Black Friday event. Your correspondent unfortunately had work.
