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Music

No, Vinyl Sales Aren't Down 33% in 2024. They're up 6.2% 82

Posted by msmash from the math-is-hard dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: Starting on October 14, 2024, news outlets including Yahoo and NME reported that year-over-year, the U.S. vinyl market was down 33 percent. The data for these articles came from a weekly report from Billboard called "Market Watch," which automatically updates with data provided by the company Luminate. Amid the vinyl revolution, this news signified a shift in buyer habits: a sales decline among vinyl for the first time in 17 years.

On October 15, Discogs contacted Chris Muratore, director of partnerships at Luminate, who confirmed that the reported data is incorrect. Vinyl sales are actually up 6.2 percent. Billboard has since added language to their "Market Watch" report, clearing up the error. Luminate has been the gold standard for physical music sales numbers for decades. However, at the beginning of this year, the company changed its reporting process, frustrating many record store owners and industry personnel.
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No, Vinyl Sales Aren't Down 33% in 2024. They're up 6.2% More

No, Vinyl Sales Aren't Down 33% in 2024. They're up 6.2%

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  • At this point in history, and absent a retro fad, I would imagine that sales of audio recordings on vinyl are pretty stable year-on-year. And I think the retro fad happened about a decade ago, so.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by KMnO4 ( 684253 )
      If they are stable year over year, that's a sign they are still a fad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • They have been on the rise for 25 or 30 years. When CD hit their peak. 30 years is not a fad. And CD continues to fall off.

    • At this point in history, and absent a retro fad, I would imagine that sales of audio recordings on vinyl are pretty stable year-on-year. And I think the retro fad happened about a decade ago, so.

      Actually, cassettes have started to be popular again. There are even newer bands releasing albums on them. No idea why. Worst format ever, and I grew up listening to the damned things so I should be the target market for such shenanigans.

      • Actually, cassettes have started to be popular again. There are even newer bands releasing albums on them. No idea why. Worst format ever, and I grew up listening to the damned things so I should be the target market for such shenanigans.

        That's driven by the younger generations buying them as collectables. They usually are not actually listening to them. Modern production cassette players are atrociously bad, since no company that knew how to make them well still builds the mechanisms. I do agree it's rather hilarious that anyone would want cassette tapes in the modern age, since that's basically just a worse quality version of having a resurgence of interest in CD-Rs; tapes were how we pirated music in the old days!

        As for vinyl records,

        • TT's aren't too bad at the high end. It's the tonearms and carts. SME's can top several grand and if you have the micro-seiki DDX-1000 you can spring for three arms and of course three cart's. Something like say a grado epoch3 for 12K and maybe a Koetsu platinum for 10k and then a inexpensive AT ART1000 (5K) for disks that are not pristine. And of course you'll want a few phono preamps to mate with those carts. Personally I own an ancient Denon DP-30L that still works great (arm came with the unit) and ver

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Megane ( 129182 )

        cassettes
        Worst format ever

        Said by someone too young to know about 8-track. The only good thing about 8-track was that it worked in an automotive vibration environment. I remember as a kid regularly finding piles of 8-track tape guts on the side of the road, from when someone would rip a busted tape out of the player, then throw it out the window in disgust.

        • cassettes Worst format ever

          Said by someone too young to know about 8-track. The only good thing about 8-track was that it worked in an automotive vibration environment. I remember as a kid regularly finding piles of 8-track tape guts on the side of the road, from when someone would rip a busted tape out of the player, then throw it out the window in disgust.

          Oh, I remember 8 tracks. Dad had them everywhere, including the cars. You're right. I should have said worst format of my generation.

          Granted, I do still have grandpa's old school platter-level hand-crank record player out in the storage unit. Bust it out every few years and it still plays just fine. That was a format worth keeping around.

          • You young whippersnappers never heard of wax cylinders?! The sound is SO much more [whatever-people-claim-vinyl-to-be].

            • You young whippersnappers never heard of wax cylinders?! The sound is SO much more [whatever-people-claim-vinyl-to-be].

              Noisy. I mean, they claim warm, but they mean noisy. And having heard a few wax cylinder recorders in person, you'd be right. They're far more noisy than vinyl.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by taustin ( 171655 )

          Wax cylinders weren't anything to write home about, either.

          • > Wax cylinders weren't anything to write home about, either.

            Funny, considering at that time people most certainly did write home about such things.

        • Not only that, but most 8-tracks had no fast-forward or rewind feature.

          Want to listen to "Take the Long Way Home" again? Sorry Charlie, you just need to wait for it to come around again on Program 4.

      • Worst format ever

        So I'm curious - What better format did you use to listen to music compilations in your car in 1987?

        • Worst format ever

          So I'm curious - What better format did you use to listen to music compilations in your car in 1987?

          It's not currently 1987. I welcomed CDs with open arms as all around better. As much as I enjoy the digital availability, I still like my CDs. I never really thought they'd be the last mass-market media format to be physical, but it's cool. I'm too old to matter to the media giants anyway.

          • The other thing I like about CD's is longevity. With minimal care (some were in the car over the years) I've yet to have one fail and I started collecting in 83. I have an original Sony CDP-100, built like a tank bought in 83. Sound was not good though, which is not surprising. in 83, state of the art DA's were not very good. Today a cellphone integrated DAC is probably better. The greatest disappointment was that SACD did not take off. CD is almost there but needs just a bit more performance. Of course the
          • You wrote "Worst format ever."

            Ever.

            For portable music it was the *best* format around, up until we got reasonably-priced non-skip portable CD players around the year 2000.

            So no, cassettes we absolutely NOT the "worst format ever."

        • FM radio after midnight.

      • Cassettes are actually really good.

        The problem is most people played decently made commercial cassettes with dolby, on crap equipment that was basically the kind of crap you would get off ali-express today.

        Once you actually bother to acquire a half decent cassette deck, yes, I mean a proper deck, not a little portable (and no, I’m not thinking of a Nakamichi Dragon, something like a Technics), and switch on Dolby B when playing the cassette compilation, you used to listen to over and over as a kid, we

  • Terrible error-prone and flimsy format, no one who takes listening to music seriously uses vinyl. Eventually the needle wears and starts damaging the media too. It's a novelty fad for people with money to waste. Yes, I'm old and had vinyl records... until the 1980s when I upgraded to the superior format. Now we can store our music digitally and don't need physical media at all.

    • Re:who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mustafap ( 452510 ) on Thursday October 17, 2024 @11:12AM (#64872117) Homepage

      Ah come on. A significant part of owning Vinyl was the physical experience. Do you remember the beautiful artwork on the covers? Do you remember the feel of the delicate record as you carefully removed it and placed it on your player? And the care and love you gave to you deck & needle?

      It's almost like the music was a secondary pleasure.

      And I say that while not being a Vinyl enthusiast. Man, some of them went way into the experience. Anyone remember oxygen free cables? :)

      • Anyone remember oxygen free cables?

        I listen to my music in a high pressure hydrogen you insensitive clod.

      • I like to browse sites like Cable Co [thecableco.com] just for the shock value of the 5 figure speaker cables. Stereophile magazine (online) is fun to read too. 100k turntables paired with 50k amps run through 10k power conditioners. And then there's the cables and the speakers.

    • > Eventually the needle wears and starts damaging the media too

      You're think of 78's?

      All decent styli are DIAMOND ones. No wear.

      DIAMOND!

  • File this under.... (Score:3)

    by Kelxin ( 3417093 ) on Thursday October 17, 2024 @10:52AM (#64872083)
    Who cares?!
    • Exactly. The really cool kids all listen to Tefifon [wikipedia.org].

    • No, file this under Fake News.

    • Who cares?!

      All of the vinyl fetishists care. There's a decent overlap in the Venn diagram between vinyl-lovers and people with a bondage kink but it's a different thing. With this story we now learn that the number of people dressing up in skin-tight plastic is on the risk. PVC pants fans don't need to feel like they're a dying breed of niche turn-ons.

      All of which is a way of pointing out that the summary doesn't say this is about music.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Briareos ( 21163 )

        Well, there's

        Luminate has been the gold standard for physical music sales numbers for decades.

        in the summary...

    • >Who cares?!

      Huge numbers of people.

      I cant give one shit about if little kids and wierd adults get to ride horses or not. Bulldoze the stables and make usefull use of the land IMHO.

      YET... THEY... STILL... CLING... ON... TO... ANCIENT... CRAPPY... SMELLY... HORSE... RIDING!

      Turns out they dont give a crap about me either and as their horse's ass craps out a present to the driver and his kid behind the animal in the car, they really cant give a shit other than the one the horse gave.

      I think you could do wit

  • More msmash space filler as usual (Score:3)

    by couchslug ( 175151 ) on Thursday October 17, 2024 @10:56AM (#64872089)

    Why would this trifle be newsworthy? What's next, linking to antique cylindrical recording sales?

    • You can still buy those? Where? Are they players that can pair with Bluetooth speakers?

      • Yes, you can get new cylinder records [vulcanrecords.com] . Modern-made players are harder to find, but are out there. [cps1.net] Couldn't find one that said it had Bluetooth, though.

      • > You can still buy those? Where?

        Today in 2024, we have a thing called: The Internet.

        In fact this retro tech existed back in the 90's and before then we had the BBS too. Since that time we implemented a thing called: The Search Engine.

        There used to be many, now there are only two, well there is a third, a poser called Bing that is only used by those who dont realise that the forced default can be changed.

        The magic thing is: People use search engines to find information on the internet before posting que

        • Perhaps I can find a cylindrical recording of a "whoosh" sound for you! :)

          However, after getting an answer, I did some searching. Despite your assertion, I couldn't find out the most important information. There doesn't seem to be any standards organization dealing with cylindrical recordings. As somebody who had no prior interest in such things, I wasn't able to be confident about which cylindrical recordings can play on which player. Much of the content about arcane topics tends to be targeted towar

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by beerale ( 520271 )
      I hear that Sumerian/Akkadian clay tablets will be making a BIG comeback in 2025. Big big.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Gaglia ( 4311287 )

      Why would this trifle be newsworthy?

      I tell you why: because nowadays it's one of the very few ways you can actually OWN your music.

      I used to consider vinyl some hipster madness fad. I don't buy the "sounds warmer" BS, and it's definitely worse than digital in every possible aspects. Except: you OWN it. No DRM. No need of some license-encumbered codec to play it. No need of careful backup, and shielding your backup from solar flares. No need to setup an account, or to play a premium to skip annoying ads. Also, it's undoubtedly more elegant

      • "it's definitely worse than digital in every possible aspects. Except: you OWN it. No DRM."

        So, how's it better than a CD? CDs may be all digital, but they have no DRM and their LPCM encoding is public domain.

      • You nailed it. Vinyl is a Free medium

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        It's one of the reasons I was sad about the shutdown of the Pono store. Sure, it was run by a hack musician touting some crap music player, but it was a store that sold DRM-free FLAC of music.

        You could buy the music and you had it.

        These days the music is still DRM free, but there's no lossless version around, for whatever reason. You can xtream lossless music, but you certainly can't buy it.

        (Pono closed because Apple bought out the company behind it which supplied music to music stores - they handled the li

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I find it interesting. CD sales are dying as everyone moves to digital, beacuse the digital version is essentially the same. I know, CDs are uncompressed, MP3 is a crime against humanity, but to most people they sound identical.

      Meanwhile vinyl has some unique properties that make it attractive. Large format cover with artwork you can hang on your wall. Soft "analogue" sound and physical limitations that force the tracks to be mastered better than the digital ones.

      It is also affecting how music is produced.

      • > I find it interesting. CD sales are dying as everyone moves to digital

        How do you know?

        This article explains that the reporting system has changed. Vynil sales AND CD sales have been miss reported because of it.

    • > Why would this trifle be newsworthy?

      For the same reason I find it amazing we still have libraries in 2024.

      Not only is it insane that people still read marks pressed in ink on dead trees, but they also still expect libraries to somehow be relevant.

      The whole concept is just mad.

  • Inaccurate (Score:4, Funny)

    by cstacy ( 534252 ) on Thursday October 17, 2024 @11:30AM (#64872175)

    It's not 33%.

    It's 33-1/3 % of course.

    And singles are down 45% I heard.

  • Vinyl is different (Score:3)

    by RossCWilliams ( 5513152 ) on Thursday October 17, 2024 @11:56AM (#64872281)

    Vinyl sounds different than digital, whether you care is another story.

    Albums are played as a side at a time with multiple songs, think of it as two playlists by the artist. That is one of the reasons musicians use it. You can do that with digital and with CD's but most people don't. They play their favorites or mix multiple artists.

    Listening to vinyl is an activity. You need to change sides regularly, Lots of people don't want to do that and just want background music played for them. But it makes it a different experience.

    Unlike digital services, you own the music.

    Album covers and "liner notes" - Have you ever read Bob Dylan's poetry?

    • "Vinyl sounds different than digital, whether you care is another story."

      Very true. It's worse.

    • Re:Vinyl is different (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Thursday October 17, 2024 @01:07PM (#64872505)

      I'm about to play devil's advocate here, just for fun. Here goes:

      Vinyl sounds different than digital, whether you care is another story.

      And generally speaking, there's more difference in sound between two different turntables than between two different digital music sources. Colorations are fine, but if you're looking for consistency and fidelity, digital is better.

      Albums are played as a side at a time with multiple songs, think of it as two playlists by the artist... You can do that with digital and with CD's but most people don't. They play their favorites or mix multiple artists.

      And when cassette decks came along, so did mixtapes, and they were pretty popular, even though they were a pain to make using vinyl as the original source. CDs then made the process easier. Then came music on hard drives - which is what I mostly listen to - which makes it easier still, with no janky magnetic tape involved. As for "two playlists", I'll just mention Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick album - it's likely that you're familiar with it.

      Listening to vinyl is an activity. You need to change sides regularly, Lots of people don't want to do that and just want background music played for them. But it makes it a different experience.

      Yes, playing vinyl IS an activity - one which in my memory distracted me from listening, especially when I was in bed with the headphones on and had to get up and lift the needle before falling asleep. Or when a side change interrupted the flow of the music, and with it the emotional state the music had engendered. Also, record changers were made for 'background music', so you can't blame digital for making folks desire that.

      Unlike digital services, you own the music.

      That's not the sole province of vinyl - I also own the music on my CDs and hard drives.

      I don't miss listening to vinyl at all - and my collection, although tiny by a serious collector's standards, was big enough that I recently sold the last remnants of it for around $1200. I'd rather have the portability, longevity, and flexibility of a fully digital source. The only part of the vinyl experience I miss is the jackets - artwork, gatefolds, large photos, easily readable lyrics, posters and stickers, etc. Too bad, so sad, oh well - on balance, what I have now is better than vinyl ever was.

      Album covers and "liner notes" - Have you ever read Bob Dylan's poetry?

      You've got me on the former - see above. As for Dylan, I'd much rather listen to his poetry. His work is fundamentally musical, and I don't find merely reading his lyrics to be at all engaging. I say that as somebody who has both read and written a fair amount of poetry.

      • say that as somebody who has both read and written a fair amount of poetry.

        Have you read Dylan's poetry on Bringing it All Back Home. I don't think it is particularly musical. Apparently Dylan didn't think so either so he printed it on the cover instead of singing it.

        so you can't blame digital for making folks desire that.

        Well I don't think the desire is new, its the reason cd players allow random play and why music services create playlists. There are lots of people who have no interest in music listening as an activity, in fact most of us at some point.

        • Have you read Dylan's poetry on Bringing it All Back Home. I don't think it is particularly musical. Apparently Dylan didn't think so either so he printed it on the cover instead of singing it.

          Fair point - I was unaware of that.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Jerrry ( 43027 )

        As for Dylan, I'd much rather listen to his poetry. His work is fundamentally musical, and I don't find merely reading his lyrics to be at all engaging.

        As for Dylan, I'd much rather listen to other singers cover his songs. His voice is cringeworthy.

        • As for Dylan, I'd much rather listen to other singers cover his songs. His voice is cringeworthy.

          Yeah, I guess his voice is one of those love-it-or-hate-it things. But I get what you're saying, because I only love his voice on the songs I love. And I can't imagine that I'd like anyone else's voice for songs such as Positively 4th Street and Like a Rolling Stone.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Vinyl sound has two interesting properties.

        Firstly the music has to be mastered differently because the medium can't physically reproduce the extremely loud and distorted sound that CDs and MP3s can. Digital music tends to be over-compressed to give that "wall of sound" effect, lacking in dynamic range so it sounds flat. Vinyl, despite being worse for stuff like dynamic range on paper, tends to be better in practice because of what is known as the "loudness war".

        As such the vinyl often serves as a sort of "

  • ...the age of vinyl when it was the only option.
    I had good equipment and treated my records with care, but I remember getting a new record, carefully placing it on a nice turntable, and on the first play, clicks and pops. I find it extremely hard to understand why anybody still likes vinyl. In my judgement, it sucked mightily

    The music, however, was better back then

    • The music, however, was better back then

      Meh, I had plenty of LPs in the Good Ol' Days with one good track and the rest shite.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Phact ( 4649149 )

      Remember every audiophile of the day bought CDs when they came out, added them to their systems, and did side by side comparisons, They ditched their vinyl and never looked back.

  • If sales are and were exactly zero, then they could simultaneously be up by 6.2% and down by 33%. :-D

  • Back when weed had seeds (Score:3)

    by zawarski ( 1381571 ) on Thursday October 17, 2024 @03:24PM (#64872867)
    Album covers were useful for breaking up your weed on.

  • Secondary market rules (Score:3)

    by edis ( 266347 ) on Thursday October 17, 2024 @04:31PM (#64873035) Journal

    Never ever had I such multitude of options to get vinyl records, as it is now. Do buy some new at my bookstore, but for the same budget of about 50 Eur, I will bring home many of them from the local flea market, held every other weekend. It is heaven for the music lover.

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