It was only a matter of time in which this was going to happen...vinyl is set to outsell CD's for the first time since 1986. Yeah...that's right. Outsell! In recent years, buying vinyl has become the trend for a lot of people. People from younger generations have discovered the difference in sound from buying and listening to a record and a lot of people in older generations have made it a passion project to collect their old favorites.
Last year, the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) mid-year report suggested that CD sales were declining three times as fast as vinyl sales were growing. In February, the RIAA reported that vinyl sales accounted for more than a third of the revenue coming from physical releases. According to Rollingstone, This trend continues in RIAA’s 2019 mid-year report, which came out on Thursday. Vinyl records earned $224.1 million (on 8.6 million units) in the first half of 2019, closing in on the $247.9 million (on 18.6 million units) generated by CD sales. Vinyl revenue grew by 12.8% in the second half of 2018 and 12.9% in the first six months of 2019, while the revenue from CDs barely budged. If these trends hold, records will soon be generating more money than compact discs.
The vinyl resurgence has been a boon for some artists, especially classic rock groups. The Beatles sold over 300,000 records in 2018, while Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, and Queen all sold over 100,000.
What do you think of this? Do you buy vinyl or CD's? Digital?