Record geeks rarely need a reason to feel smug, but vinyl hoarders worldwide had reassuring news the other week as Nielsen SoundScan released figures predicting that sales of proper, old-fashioned albums will top 2.8m by the end of 2009. This will mean an increase of almost 1m on last year and the highest annual figure for vinyl sales since SoundScan began tracking them in 1991.
990,000 vinyl albums were sold in 2007, up 15.4% from the 858,000 units bought in 2006
a New England chain of independent music retailers that sells LPs and CDs, says his vinyl sales were up 37% last year, and Patrick Amory, general manager of indie label Matador Records, whose artists include Cat Power and the New Pornographers, claims, "We can't keep up with the demand."
Just while most thought the Vinyl record has been obsolete, apparently Vinyl is actually making a come-back with sales rising a whopping 87.3% between April and June, compared with the same three month period last year. In fact, 7″ Vinyl has now had the best 12 month sales period since 1998. In just the twelve months up to March 31st 2005, 7″ vinyl sales have reached 1.38 million.
some stats that disagree!