Are we in our vinyl era? Report finds some physical music sales see growth

Streaming remains king for new music revenues, but physical music formats continue to grow.A new report shows Americans are continuing to invest in more tangible ways to listen to their favorite tunes.This begs the question — are we in our vinyl era?“Every year is better than the previous one — substantially,” said Jonathan Sandler of vinyl record sales at his Brookline record store. Sandler, who has been able to spin while on the job as owner of Village Vinyl in the Greater Boston neighborhood, said vinyl sales are groovy right now. He remains in awe of his diverse clientele. “I was shocked at the ages of the people coming in, anywhere from 10-year-olds to 85-year-olds,” he said. This is a second career for him, but he has been jamming to vinyl records since he was gifted his first album as a kid. "It was for my 11th birthday," he said, staring into a memory. "It was Freedom of Choice by Devo.”At Village Vinyl, you'll find a lot of solid classics in the collection like The Beatles, Fleetwood Mac and others native to vinyl's heyday. But there is also a space dedicated entirely to new music. "I just saw a Courtney Barnett vinyl," said customer Grayson Hartwick, flicking his way through the stack of new albums. "I'll browse for, like, an hour, and then I need to leave and go to other places. And then, if I'm still thinking about the vinyl that I was looking at, I'll come back. I mean, to like, force myself away because then I'll just spend way too much money."Sandler is more than OK with that, not just for the business, but because he loves people appreciating the art form. “I think people are still buying vinyl because it's fun. It's tangible. It sounds better than any streaming service or really any other medium," he said. Across the street from Village Vinyl, Miriam Olken agreed. She's still spinning CDs and dusting off cassette tapes at home. “I never get off my phone, so if the boombox with the tape recorder and the CD is in my room, I'm going to focus better, right?" she said. "I can open the album cover and look at the art that they made or maybe the thank yous that they did and look at, like, all the hard work that it took to really make that.”While streaming can be taken on the go, vinyl needs a dedicated space.“I really like to listen to vinyl when I'm cooking or just like hanging around the house," said Matthew Bass, director of Research and Gold and Platinum Operations at the Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA. Bass crafts RIAA's annual revenue report, which shows how Americans spend money on music. “Everywhere that music is touching culture, we are trying to capture its value,” he said. According to his latest report, recorded music revenues reached a record high of $17 billion, showing growth for the eighth year in a row.“We're basically firmly in the streaming era," Bass said, "and most of the revenue that is being added each year is coming from paid subscriptions.”It likely comes as no surprise that streaming sales accounted for 84% of total revenues for the second year in a row. However, the data tells another interesting story about the sales of new music in physical formats. According to the 2023 report, revenues from physical formats have continued to grow after a documented resurgence in 2021.Last year, total physical revenues were up 11% from 2022, totaling almost $2 billion in sales.Bass' report shows that vinyl sales specifically grew 10% to $1.4 billion last year, marking the 17th consecutive year of growth. For the second time since 1987, vinyl albums outsold CDs in units, even as CD sales showed some growth from last year. "It connects people who used to listen to vinyl back in the sixties and seventies, but it also integrates new fans who really like to show their support for their favorite artists," Bass said. Even if vinyl buyers don't have a record player, Bass said they can use the albums for decorative merchandise items. "You can see they can use it as art behind them in their Zoom meetings," he said, gesturing to a Smith and Roberts album behind him, "and, you know, kind of show who they're fans of when their friends come over."Hartwick, who was shopping at Village Vinyl, agreed. "I'm a lot more proud of having a collection of vinyl at my house that I can, like, show off to my friends," he said. "My Boards of Canada Vinyl, I have so much pride in, like, showing that to people!”Last year, vinyl made up nearly a quarter of all physical format revenues. And that's only considering new music made on vinyl.“So if you go to your favorite record store and you buy a Led Zeppelin album, we actually aren't capturing any of that revenue," Bass said. "So the demand for vinyl is actually much greater than what we are reporting.”Why is the demand so great, given the overwhelming popularity of music streaming? Sandler suspects it’s the era we’re living in.“I mean, in a sense, Taylor Swift has revitalized the industry," he said. "Pretty much all of her stuff is on vinyl with a couple of exceptions. They're all in print at the moment. We sell all of them, almost daily. It's just incredible.”The new question is, how long will this era of interest in vinyl last this time around? “One fun thing that I'm going to be keeping my eye on over the next five to 10 years is to see if Latin music fans really connect with vinyl because Latin music is a very streaming-heavy format, even more so than the regular industry," Bass said. "So if Latin music fans can be reconnected to those physical formats, you know, that could be a big boom. So it's something to keep our eye on.Whether you're streaming or spinning, your music, and your dollars, continue to shape the ever-changing world in which we live in. "There's just something that lasts about it," Sandler said. "Something magical? Something that you really can't put into words.”Despite that supposition, Bass has tried his best to do exactly that! You can download the full 2023 report here, as well as the year-end Latin Music Revenue Report for 2023.