The revenge of vinyl

Vinyl records have outsold CDs for the first time in 35 years. Once dismissed as a thing of the past, vinyl is back with a vengeance. How did this most peculiar phenomenon come about?

My friend Brad from

Front Row & Backstage

messaged me on Friday as the news broke: vinyl record sales have now officially surpassed CD sales for the first time in the US since 1987. This confirms the rumours we had been hearing through the grapevine for a while. Vinyl is now officially the dominant format for physical record sales in the US, according to the latest Recording Industry Association of America’s year-end report.

While vinyl revenues have been growing steadily, and already surpassed CD revenues a couple of years ago, this is the first time in decades that vinyl records have outsold CDs in unit terms in the US: about 41 million vinyl albums were sold in 2022, compared with about 33 million CDs. Vinyl revenues rose 17% last year to $1.2 billion, as correctly estimated by Stephan from

Marktexperte

(without any additional information available, just his brains, as I dared him to come up with a figure on the spot) and accounted for 71% of physical format revenue.

This side of the pond, 2022 saw the largest volume of vinyl sales since 1990 with 5.5 million units sold in the UK (compared with 11.6 million CDs) and represented roughly 32% of all physical purchases, according to a report published by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). While CD is still outselling vinyl in unit terms in the UK, vinyl sales grew 11% to £151m last year, making 2022 the 15th consecutive year of growth for vinyl in these shores.

Mind you, these figures relate to the “official” market only (retail sales of newly-issued records). Sales in the second-hand market, where vinyl is extremely popular, are not included.

These numbers confirm a trend we have been observing in recent years. The reasons are varied but what’s clear is that vinyl is increasingly gaining ground as the preferred option when it comes to listening to music in physical format. Streaming, however, is still the biggest driver of the music industry’s growth, making up approximately 84% of recorded-music revenue in the US and 67% in the UK.

I’m not a numbers kind of guy (that’s why I married one) but these figures clearly tell us that streaming is an unstoppable force that shows no signs of abating.

At the same time, we should bear in mind that many vinyl lovers (myself included) also use streaming services occasionally. As I explained not too long ago, while I believe the benefits of vinyl far outweigh those of streaming, there is an element of cross-selling, as many vinyl collectors also use music streaming services, either to have more access to music or to test records before buying them. In a way, vinyl and streaming can be seen as somewhat complementary.

But ever since the CD format burst onto the scene approximately 40 years ago, vinyl and CD have been pitted against each other in a seemingly endless battle for superiority and dominance. Streaming and vinyl are diametrically opposed, so it makes sense for them to be seen as complementary. No one, not even analogue lovers, will try to argue that cassettes are superior to any other format, as recurring problems such as tape hissing are well documented. But between vinyl and CD there has always been this rivalry among collectors and sound engineers as to which format is better.

The reasons behind this debate are as historical as they are technical. When CD was first introduced into the market, it was heralded as the ultimately superior and most technologically advanced medium for domestic music consumption. All of the problems or disadvantages of vinyl, such as degradation, surface noise, distortion, and lack of portability, would be a thing of the past. The compact disc was presented as the immediate and permanent solution to all of these issues. Its potential, so they said, was endless.

CD would go on to become the dominant format throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, peaking in 2002, to then give way to the MP3 audio format and music sharing platforms (such as Napster), which paved the way for music streaming services as we know them today.

It is therefore hugely symbolic that vinyl is now outselling CDs. What this tells us is that, when it comes to buying music in physical format, vinyl records are being preferred in greater proportion to CDs, despite being more expensive.

The reasons, however, are of a slightly different nature nowadays compared with 30 years ago. Back then, CD and digital audio were being sold as superior, as a more advanced way of listening to music. I would be very surprised if you told me that the vast majority of people who are currently choosing vinyl records over CDs actually know the difference between these two formats from a sound quality perspective.

Save for a very limited number of exceptions, I don’t think the average customer is saying “you know what? I can’t with this 16 bit audio sampled at 44.1 kHz; I’d rather listen to actual sound waves printed on a disc and read by a needle that sends an analogue signal to my system”.

On average, the general public care very little about things like sampling, bit rates and kHz. If they did, streaming wouldn’t be so popular. A lossless audio file on Apple Music, presented as “superior”, “high-quality” or even “high resolution” turns out to be, when you read the small print, 16 bit 44.1 kHz. That’s exactly the same as what you get with most CDs. Spotify tends to use compression so the audio quality is even inferior. And streaming platforms take the lion’s share of recorded music sales revenues.

People are choosing to buy vinyl records because of the experience. True, there’s the obvious nostalgia attached to it. But if you think about it, album sales in the last two years have been dominated by the likes of Adele, Harry Styles and Taylor Swift, all too young to have experienced vinyl in its heyday. It is crazy to think that there may soon be an entire legion of music fans who never actually owned a CD, as they gravitate directly from MP3/streaming to vinyl, in a motion that is, arguably, as forward as it is backward, however ironic or contradictory this may sound. Vinyl is both synonymous with novelty and going back to basics — a beautiful contradiction.

Interestingly, some of the issues associated with vinyl, such as surface noise and inner groove distortion, are attracting an entire new generation of music fans who actually find comfort in the warmth of these “imperfections”.

Besides, vinyl is now cool again, and with the hype surrounding coloured vinyl and picture discs, vinyl has managed to secure its slot on Instagram and TikTok reels. Ask anyone being laughed at for buying an LP in 1990 if they ever thought they would live to see a phenomenon like the one we are experiencing nowadays.

There is little doubt that vinyl is back with a vengeance. We can only hope that once some of this hype eventually calms down, vinyl will have secured its newly found lease of life and won’t be pushed into oblivion again. Only time will tell. But one thing is for sure: no matter what happens, vinyl will always come back, victorious and vindicated, determined to have the last laugh.