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Music

Vinyl Album Sales Jump 108% In First 6 Months of 2021 (cnbc.com) 110

Posted by EditorDavid from the breaking-records dept.
Long-time Slashdot reader phalse phace writes: 2021 is turning out to be an even stronger year for vinyl album sales than in 2020.

In the first six months of 2021, 19.2 million vinyl albums were sold, outpacing CD volume of 18.9 million, according to MRC Data, an analytics firm that specializes in collecting data from the entertainment and music industries. That is a 108% increase from the 9.2 million that were sold during the same period in 2020.

And according to MRC Data, Record Store Day 2021 helped to sell 1.279 million vinyl albums in the U.S. in the week ending June 17, a record for a Record Store Day week and the third-largest week for vinyl album sales since MRC Data began electronically tracking sales in 1991. Further, with 942,000 vinyl albums sold at independent record stores in the week ending June 17, that marks the largest week ever for the format at the indie sector in MRC Data history.
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Vinyl Album Sales Jump 108% In First 6 Months of 2021 More

Vinyl Album Sales Jump 108% In First 6 Months of 2021

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  • What's old is new again (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ShoulderOfOrion ( 646118 ) on Sunday July 18, 2021 @07:18PM (#61595645)

    I'm old enough to remember when vinyl was ALL I could buy. I still have my vinyl records, next to my CD collection. Hate the clicks and the pops. Love the cover art. Won't stream anything that I can't download and keep, because rent-seeking corporations can go f*** themselves, and the only way my purchased music collection can disappear some day is in a fire.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Tough Love ( 215404 )

      Get those discs read one last time with a laser turntable then put them away forever. If you actually care about your albums, shrinkwrap them with the discs inside.

      • Re:What's old is new again (Score:4, Insightful)

        by TheMiddleRoad ( 1153113 ) on Sunday July 18, 2021 @07:47PM (#61595705)

        So the albums that were mastered in digital then written in analog to the vinyl you want to re-digitize?

        • If they were my albums, I would. That is, unless they are just junk or I can already get a digital version.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          So the albums that were mastered in digital then written in analog to the vinyl you want to re-digitize?

          Basically.

          What I find more atrocious is that it's often nigh-impossibe to get the same album in CD format. Vinyl sure, but CD? Nope. If you're lucky, there's a FLAC download you can get. But almost always, it's either stream it, buy it off some lossy sales site, or Vinyl.

          Which basically tells me vinyl is just some nostalgic thing people are doing to rake in money. People are buying it just because it's "r

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Yes because the vinyl versions are mastered differently to the CD versions.

          CDs can tolerate a huge amount of distortion and loudness (average volume level) because they are digital. You could write a square wave to them (the theoretical maximum loudness signal) and they would play back just fine.

          Vinyl can't get too loud or the stylus will jump out of the track or get damaged. So they have to master the album with less loudness, which results in more dynamic range and a more pleasant sound.

          There is now a big

      • Get those discs read one last time with a laser turntable then put them away forever ...

        Laser WHAT? Link please.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by _merlin ( 160982 )

          Laser turntables do exist, but they aren't that good. The trouble is, every bit of dust messes with them, so they need filters that reduce the fidelity. They do have the advantage of not causing wear on the groove, but that's about it.

      • I'm not a curator.

        I have vinyls because I like the act off listening to music on records. I like listening to albums as albums, I like the ritual of placing the disc and needle, and so on. And I like being completely off line.

        Owning a bunch and never using them is a good way of wasting space for me.

        • You can probably digitise the albums, and then set up a turntable to play one when the needle hits thr groove of a 'stunt' record. Thus you'll still get to hear the limited dyndmic range of vinyl without additional pops and clicks unless you want to add them for years to come.

          • I mean I could... but that sound like a lot more work than just playing a record. As for pops and clicks, if I cared about audio quality I wouldn't be using records. And have a hifi record player, not my distinctly lo fi one.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
              Actually I can empathise with the physicality aspect sometimes. It probably imposes better listening discipline too.

              • Yes in some senses it does: there's no shuffle or track skipping. And it actually makes you sit down and listen, so for me it becomes a nice activity as I almost never have background music on so I rarely listened.

                If I want to listen to singles, then I have to choose a stack in advance, which means perusing the collection often while the current stack is playing. It makes me think about what will go together and is much more active.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Megane ( 129182 )
            That's sort of how digital vinyl scratch [wikipedia.org] works. You have a timecode disc with a tone and time codes recorded on it, and the DJ program uses that like a controller. Then you can scratch the record back and forth, and the playback does the same thing, only with an audio file from the computer. The better DJ controllers will have phono inputs so that you can use two turntables and two jog controllers at the same time, such as for a club set-up where multiple DJs will use the same equipment, only having to swap

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Are laser turntables easily available? Last I heard the only source was one guy in Japan who still makes them.

        • Does it matter? They were garbage compared to other turntable. It's a bit of audiophile nonsense baked entirely in the hope that the target market is 90 years old and legally deaf.

          Kind of like that optical analogue interconnect some company was selling as the "solution" to "poor sounding" cables. Literally they would use a laser on one end, an optical receiver and amplifier on the other. The cable needed its own power source, and despite no one ever being able to measure distortions on a normal interconnect

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            I heard it was good, just required a lot of work to get the best from (record has to be perfectly clean). Maybe good for ripping.

            Personally I can't be bothered, I just grab a FLAC rip from a group I know does good quality recordings.

      • Or just buy a modern Phonostage with USB output and record them, no need for a laser turntable... You know the type that never actually was able to audibly outperform even a sub $1000 turntable.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Megane ( 129182 )
        Laser turntables are overrated, they're too sensitive to dust, among other things. They're only important for archival purposes, where you absolutely don't want to damage a rare disc. And they're not cheap, on the order of $6000 or so as I recall.

    • Re:What's old is new again (Score:4, Funny)

      by Ostracus ( 1354233 ) on Sunday July 18, 2021 @07:54PM (#61595721) Journal

      I'm waiting for the buggy whip to make a come-back.

    • The cover art of LPs could be beautifully mesmerizing.
      So when newer formats appeared, was replacing your vinyl with ,say silly 8-Track, ever on the table?

      • They coincided. Cassette had some foldouts that fir in the cover where the cassette fit; but vinyl didnt disappear until long after CD. Then the album art was smaller.

      • It wasn't just the cover art (and the large canvas of LPs made that art even more impressive), it was also the interior inserts and creative designs that were appealing. Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti with its sliding windows is an obvious example of some of the unique things you could do with album covers.

        As for 8-track, no, I don't know anyone who replaced their albums. Although the manufacturers tried (rip 'quadraphonic') I don't recall 8-tracks being much more than a format used mostly for low-quality

    • I just hated that even with a diamond needle, the more you played it, the less quality it would sound. There was a finite number of plays. Wish I still had my Thriller EP. that would have fetched a prize these days.

    • Bah, you kids and your fancy vinyl, shellac records have a much smoother sound for audio purists! Now to go listen to my collection of 78s.

  • Aroma candles doing well (Score:4, Funny)

    by Tough Love ( 215404 ) on Sunday July 18, 2021 @07:27PM (#61595655)

    I understand aroma candles are doing well too. Same clientele.

    • Re:Aroma candles doing well (Score:4, Funny)

      by TheMiddleRoad ( 1153113 ) on Sunday July 18, 2021 @07:44PM (#61595693)

      Jesus fucking Christ, man. Just because you're 100% correct doesn't mean you have to say it!

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by sl3xd ( 111641 )

      I wish to whatever higher powers there are that I could agree.

      There is no reason Vinyl should sound better. Sadly, the loudness war has left the limitations of the LP as a *virtue* because you can’t feed it a song with a brickwall compressed dynamic range and expect it to sound good.

      Vinyl’s resurgence is helped in no small part due to the loudness war. The loudness war is 100% why I bought a turntable — and I then digitize all my albums. (And I only buy vinyl versions of albums that have b

  • It's nice to collect (Score:3)

    by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Sunday July 18, 2021 @07:34PM (#61595673)

    You get the nice big artwork, browse through the record shop and there is something pleasant about the ritual of putting on an entire album without the temptations of modern tech to skip a track here and there.

    They can and do often sound quite good because of the different mastering but I am under no delusions that they are the best audio quality out there. The intangible aspects of it are hard to replace thought.

    • You mean the rolled off lows? Is bass bad somehow?

      • What are you basing that on?

        • Might be talking about the RIAA Equalization curve. [wikipedia.org]

          • Yeah it makes the vinyl have a flat frequency response. So I’m still not sure what that post is getting at.

        • In addition to the RIAA curve, which a good phono section deals with, there's the base rolloff, and...

          I'll quote some guy on the internets who knows more about it, and then there's books on this subject:

          by Dan Mills
          DECEMBER 21, 2019 AT 00:10

          The issue for replay (Which is usually the limiting factor surprisingly) is that the playback stylus has a certain radius, which implies a limit on the radius of curvature of the groove wall that can be tracked.
          For a given linear velocity (Depends on playback speed and d

          • That doesn't say bass is bad in any way shape or form. What that says is the peak volume limit of a track and record playing time is defined by its bass. Nothing more, nothing less. There's a reason a lot of high quality releases are firstly cut on a thicker record and secondly spread across two LPs even though they could in theory fit on one.

            The entire post is a laundry list of things people are paid to deal with as part of the production process specifically so you *don't* suffer the negative effects of i

    • I should say that the ritual and such is all fine. I respect that. But the mastering is due to the format's limits.

      • It's a sad commentary on the loudness war that the limited abilities of an LP (11-12 bit equivalent on a good day) are currently a virtue.

        Current mixing & mastering trends release will have a heavily brickwalled dynamic range on a digital release (meaning thereâ(TM)s less dynamic range - drums just don't have a real impact).

        The limitations of the LP results in a mix and mastering that precludes that nonsense. It's disheartening to see. There's no reason for Vinyl to *actually* and objectively sound

        • There are good and bad digital masters out there. On a crappy playback system, a low DR, loud song can sound a lot better than a high DR recording, so at least there's a reason. Most new music is played on mediocre headphones fed by piss-poor DACs and underpowered amplification.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by sl3xd ( 111641 )

            The problem being that many of the good masters are impossible to get — even “audiophile” and lossless 32 bit /192 kHz songs get brickwalled to low DR’s, with results nigh indistinguishable from the HE-AAC’s from streaming services.

            I’m contrast, vinyl is relatively consistent - as long as you’re ok with the equivalent of maybe 12 bit/48 kHz. It’s sad that a literal step down in recording quality results in better playback on a good system.

            • Computer Storage/Sampling/Digital Medium were created to store large amount of data of anything that can be reproduced digitally. Not to produce a quality playback but a usable one....

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Jerrry ( 43027 )

                "Computer Storage/Sampling/Digital Medium were created to store large amount of data of anything that can be reproduced digitally. Not to produce a quality playback but a usable one...."

                Nonsense. Digital recording/playback can exactly reproduce the original sound. Exactly. Analog LPs can't do that--there's plenty of distortion and other artifacts endemic to the medium that prevents it.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by sl3xd ( 111641 )

                  Analog LPs can't do that--there's plenty of distortion and other artifacts endemic to the medium that prevents it.

                  It's also good not to forget: There have been more than a few days the music burned [nytimes.com], destroying the masters for historical greats like Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry and Aretha Franklin, and even current artists.

                  The original masters just don't exist - analog or digital. All that's left is a digital copy -- and as you point out, the digital copy exactly reproduces the original master.

                  Many (if not all) current companies that press LP's start with the digital master, and cut the master record from that.

                  I'd love to

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by sl3xd ( 111641 )

                That's completely false.

                Digitized signals are exactly the same as the original source -- to a far higher tolerance than we can physically build electronics of any kind, analog or digital.

                Even more important, many audiophiles are ignorant about the abilities of the equipment that's recording the music to begin with. There seems to be this assumption that the mics are somehow able to record everything... and they have their own limitations, just like everything else.

                In digital audio, more bits = less noise, a

    • Then laser-discs should make a comeback if people want big artwork. Star Wars would look fantastic.

      • Before or after Han shot first?? >:-|

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
        Well the cover art nabe, but i doubt the video/ audio material, ( ie the main point of the medium in the first place) will look better than UHD BD esp the hdr kind not to nention the sound, and remember on all rekeases for the last 3 decades the sound was probably mixed digitally so any ( non existent ) quality loss because you don 't understand the nyqist Shannon therem and the fact that the input is bsnd limitid, and the outbut basses thru a low pass before it goes the amp and hence any stair steps in

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Megane ( 129182 )

        Laserdisc was great for its day, back when it only had tape to compete with. The big hole even makes them easier to remove from the sleeve. But 12" discs are good for nothing other than the artwork, and the capacity of Blu-Ray is more than enough.

        If you want large artwork, just buy a poster.

  • Pretty much every turntable these days has a USB connector. So what's the point of buying an analog album that has it's analog signal from the stylus immediately digitized? And even if it is connected to the amp via RCA cables the music is almost certainly recorded in a Digital Audio Workstation, not on analog tape. And the amplifier is probably digital and plugged into the speakers with USB or some other digital connection. This is just another example of the brainless hipster culture. The skinny jeans of
    • Yep, hit those yard sales for the good albums and the proper equipment to play them on. A good tube amp is ideal.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
        Well that deoens on wether you like the way the tube ams " colour" the music, correct me if I'm wrong here, but if the goal is as perfect amplification as possible ( ie as little distortion as possible) then a good solid state amp will be better

    • Pretty much every turntable these days has a USB connector.

      Indeed many do. That said I have yet to see one used in the wild. Why would you digitize when you can just amplify and be done with it?

      the music is almost certainly recorded in a Digital Audio Workstation

      Not sure why that's relevant to playback.

      And the amplifier is probably digital and plugged into the speakers with USB or some other digital connection.

      Err... what? There are very VERY few digital path amplifiers on the market and they are specialty cases. Amplifiers are pretty much universally analogue.

      This is just another example of the brainless hipster culture.

      Nothing brainless about giant pieces of collectable album art. If you want to stream your stuff blindly go for it. A lot of vinyl these days has zero to do with listening to the music

      • You don't understand why it matters if it was recorded in digital??? That statement makes anything you say about audio after that just noise. Even if all the devices down stream are analog, you are getting an analog version of a digital stream. Like how your ears hear a digital stream. If you can't understand that then just give up, you don't have a clue about audio recordings. And buying the album for the art while the album is nothing better than a recording of a CD? THAT is a perfectly reasonable alterna

        • You don't understand why it matters if it was recorded in digital???

          You don't understand that the digital analogue shit is completely irrelevant and nothing at all to do with why people buy vinyl. Hint: They don't do it for sound quality.

          If you can't understand that then just give up, you don't have a clue about audio recordings.

          I understand, but if you can't understand why it's irrelevant then you don't have a clue about people or the vinyl resurgence.

          And buying the album for the art while the album is nothing better than a recording of a CD? THAT is a perfectly reasonable alternate definition of hipster douchebaggery.

          Why? What next, you accuse people who buy posters from their favourite bands to be douchebags too? 100% of my vinyl purchases have included links to digital files except a few vinyl exclusives which have no digital c

    • You do realize your post undermines your argument. Lots of conditional statements.

      Fun fact - what you are listening to, in your speakers or headphones is, wait for it - analog.

      Vinyl is just another medium to listening to music.

      FYI, not all music has made it to the digital realm. In fact the only way to listen to it is, wait for it, on vinyl. You can fuck off now.
      • Fun fact, almost all recording studios are digital. Nothing I said undermines anything I said. If you don't understand look up Dunning Kruger. You can fuck off now.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Megane ( 129182 )

      Reminder here that older turntables (before USB) need a pre-amp. The output from the stylus is literally wired directly to the RCA connectors. The power only goes to the motors. Phono inputs are a bit rare on amps these days, but having a USB A/D converter means that there is power to put a pre-amp inside a modern turntable, so their RCA connectors are proper line-outs.

      And speakers? If it came in the same box with speakers, they're probably bad anyhow. Also, Bluetooth is not good for hi-fi audio, if it's y

  • Several releases I'm interested in aren't even available on CD.

    Hell, even cassette is making a resurgence.

    Hipsters with cheap turntables drive the market now.

    Best I can hope for is maybe cheap hi-fi will come back into vogue too.

    • Hell, even cassette is making a resurgence.

      That would be interesting [youtu.be].

    • Hell, even cassette is making a resurgence.

      I'm breaking out my Willie Nelson and Abba 8-track tapes. Gonna do some SERIOUS par-tay boogie.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Megane ( 129182 )

      cassette is making a resurgence

      Too bad that nobody is making any new cassette mechanisms except this very bad one. [youtube.com] Even the "good" brand names are using it now. If you find a cassette player that has something modern like Bluetooth... yep, it uses this crap.

      If you care about cassette at all (I stopped caring around 1985 or so), then get an quality old unit, and be prepared to replace a few belts.

  • I do listen to my collection occasionally, but I'm much more inclined to stream the album while I browse the artwork and content. I feel like I'm supporting the artists (much more so than streaming) and I like to own the tangible good. Many vinyl albums come with a high-quality download link as well.

    I was conflicted about it at first (a petroleum-based product wrapped in a dead tree), but I was also conflicted when Apple made my entire music collection go away forever (for laughs you too should try switch

  • All that vinyl sold...literally more than CDs. I just have one simple question.

    How many vinyl record players were sold?

    Yup. That's what I thought. Art collections are rather weird these days.

    • All that vinyl sold...literally more than CDs. I just have one simple question. How many vinyl record players were sold?

      In the U.S.? 75,000.

      https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]

      • All that vinyl sold...literally more than CDs. I just have one simple question. How many vinyl record players were sold?

        In the U.S.? 75,000.

        https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]

        I'll admit, quite a few more than expected, but not nearly enough for me to assume otherwise about peoples vinyl art collections. (There were 27 million albums sold that year.)

        • And there's hundreds of thousands of turntables that still exist from the past 50 years. It's not like they only work for 18 months and then you throw it in the trash like some people do with their smartphones.

          The one on my desk has a manufacturing date in the 1980s and still works fantastically.

          • As someone that has never owned a turntable don't the mechanical mechanisms (except for the needle, I know those wear out) break in a few years? The electric motor, the gears, the rubber bands?

            • If it was cheap shit, sure.

              If it was decent when purchased, then there's a real chance it could still work fine today. I'm using a turntable I inherited from my grandmother over 10 years ago when she passed, and all I've had to do was replace a rubber belt, and the stylus cartridge.

            • No, they work for decades. And new belts can be had fairly easily. I've got a record player from the '50s that still works.

              Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big fan of records or record players. Digital is far superior. I just still have some old record players because I still have some records that I can't be bothered to digitize. I've still got CD players from the '90s that work too, but they don't get used because I ripped my CDs to lossless years ago.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Megane ( 129182 )
        And how many of those were rubbish? [youtube.com]

    • All that vinyl sold...literally more than CDs. I just have one simple question.

      How many vinyl record players were sold?

      Yup. That's what I thought. Art collections are rather weird these days.

      Some people still use their vintage tables to be sure, but there are also lots of nice new turntables available from companies like VPI, Rega, and Pro-Ject. Newer tables actually have better motors, bearings and tonearms than much of the older stuff. Also a wide variety of standalone phono-preamps to choose from. Vinyl is an old format, but there are still technological improvements being made to this day.

    • How many vinyl record players were sold?

      Considering the thousands of different models currently on the market do you think people are buying records to not play them?
      Maybe you should tell Naim they are wasting their time. After all they've been in the high end audio market for 50 years, and only just now decided to produce a turntable: https://www.forbes.com/sites/m... [forbes.com]
      Mind you most companies have revamped their turntable lineup in the past 10 years as well. Hell even Sony just released a new TT with bluetooth streaming functionality https://elect [sony.com]

  • I'm from the 80s, so even though I listen to the music on CDs, I wear vinyl clothing while I listen.

    And let me tell you, it's not getting any easier to fit into those pleather pants.

    • Damn. And here I thought this was going to be a post about GnR and their alternative original artwork for Appetite for Destruction (which I have framed.)

      My advice? Go with parachute pants. They're more forgiving. ;-)

    • upgrade to genuine Naugahyde; the Naugas eat hallucinogenic mushrooms and shed their skin whole while tripping out so no animals hurt in the making.

  • And now they're not.

    Discogs takes all of my money. Please direct me to Vinyl Anonymous, but definitely not the gimp suit meeting.

  • It started with fools who think organic is better. And now don't like science or vaccines. We are reverting to 10,000 BC.

  • The record industry itself is promoting the vinyl resurgence with limited / unique releases which are only available in that format.

    Example from Saturday: Record store day, I picked up the Dee Gees - Hail Satin (Foo Fighters covering a bunch of Bee Gees songs with a Foo Fighter rock element to them). It was a vinyl only release. 12000 copies. No CD, no Spotify, no Youtube, just vinyl (and on Sunday, bittorrent as well after someone recorded the vinyl). It was $35 well spent. By the time we finished listenin

  • When people stay at home for 18 months, you can play those all day long, but as soon as life begins again, they'll catch dust.

  • People could be threatened by vinyl that they have to bash people for purchasing it. Wild. That or Spotify paid a whole mess of trolls.

    • That or Spotify paid a whole mess of trolls.

      Occam's Razor says more likely there are stupid people on the internet.

  • I started caring about recorded music around 1982 or so, when I was in high school. Having heard about this compact disc thing, and knowing it worked without the physical contact that would wear down grooves, I decided to hold back from anything but the most essential (such as Weird Al albums), and wait a few more years for CD to be affordable. Not only did that happen, but a decade later CD-ROM and then CD-R drives came out, and from the start they supported ripping. Okay, so at the time 600+ megabytes was

  • More proof that the number of idiots with too much money is increasing drastically.

  • But hey, vinyl enthusiasts...your tiny fraction of music sales increased by 108% to become... well, still a tiny fraction.

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