According to Billboard, Jack White's Lazaretto has sold 60,000 vinyl copies in one year, making it the highest-selling vinyl record since Pearl Jam's Vitalogy. Released in 1994, Vitalogy's previous record stood uncontested for 20 years. Lazaretto's vinyl sales account for 25 percent of the total 238,000 copies sold.
The vinyl release has already broken multiples records this year. It became the "World's Fastest Released Record" when it "was recorded, mastered, pressed, and sold in just three hours and 21 minutes." The event appropriately took place on Record Store Day, and the LP was recorded at White's Nashville Third Man Records studio.
Lazaretto's vinyl version also stole the record for biggest week of total sales in history, athough this data only began being tracked in 1991. It debuted at No. 1 album on the Billboard 200.
While it is clear that White's release is somewhat of an anomaly in vinyl sales, it is impressive how far ahead Lazaretto pulled from some other major releases. The previous year's record holder, Daft Punk's Random Access Memories, peaked at 49,000 sales. Second place for the 2014 record-breaking LP title was taken by Arctic Monkeys' AM at 29,000 sales. Lazaretto easily dwarfed these highly successful LPs.
White was accused by some of essentially bribing vinyl sales by making it a novelty with a slew of incentives like two vinyl-only hidden tracks, a side that plays from the inside out and a hand-etched hologram. In fairness it a bit of a heavy-handed effort (you can see the full list of features here), but also a clearly effective one.
Aside from tantalizing sales figures, Lazaretto was also largely successful in terms of reviews, though it is certainly not his most lauded release. It was White's second album as a solo artist.
