When was the last time you bought a record? Was it a 70s double vinyl prog odyssey? A stripped down funk record from the 80s? An essential 90s club mix? Or maybe it was something altogether more modern. Whenever you last indulged, it seems that plenty of music fans are turning on to records again, with vinyl sales rising for the fifth year in a row.
Vinyl is a subject close to my heart, as well as my bank statements. At a guesstimate, I’m spending at least £40 per month on rare records from online retailers, and that’s not counting the beans I spill every time I walk past a record stall in Camden market. I’m not alone either. Unlike the empty CD shops, those vinyl stores don’t resemble a stock take. Rather, they are packed with like minded audiophiles digging in the crates, snapping up new releases and getting dusty fingers thumbing through old classics.
It has never really gone away but it’s now making a comeback of sorts. The figures might be small, but they are startling. Vinyl accounted for only 0.3 percent of album sales in the UK last year but had its best year since 2005 with 337,000 units sold. It’s a global trend too, with vinyl sales increasing 29 percent around the world and in countries such as Germany, France and the Netherlands vinyl sales are now at their highest level since 1997.
What’s driving this demand for a musical format that appears to be stuck in the past? Authenticity is one reason. It’s not just a product with visible and physical value, but an intrinsic one too. Think: why are classic jazz albums being repressed at their original 180 gram weight as opposed to the flimsier vinyl that followed in the late 80s and 90s? Well, if we want musical history, we want it presented as it was back then.
Vinyl is a subject close to my heart, as well as my bank statements. At a guesstimate, I’m spending at least £40 per month on rare records from online retailers, and that’s not counting the beans I spill every time I walk past a record stall in Camden market. I’m not alone either. Unlike the empty CD shops, those vinyl stores don’t resemble a stock take. Rather, they are packed with like minded audiophiles digging in the crates, snapping up new releases and getting dusty fingers thumbing through old classics.
It has never really gone away but it’s now making a comeback of sorts. The figures might be small, but they are startling. Vinyl accounted for only 0.3 percent of album sales in the UK last year but had its best year since 2005 with 337,000 units sold. It’s a global trend too, with vinyl sales increasing 29 percent around the world and in countries such as Germany, France and the Netherlands vinyl sales are now at their highest level since 1997.
What’s driving this demand for a musical format that appears to be stuck in the past? Authenticity is one reason. It’s not just a product with visible and physical value, but an intrinsic one too. Think: why are classic jazz albums being repressed at their original 180 gram weight as opposed to the flimsier vinyl that followed in the late 80s and 90s? Well, if we want musical history, we want it presented as it was back then.
Another reason is sound quality. As Greg Milner’s enlightening book Perfecting Sound Forever: the Story of Recorded Music documents, every layer of advancement in sound recording has too often been countered with even more layers of unnecessary compression. It is well known that FM offers better fidelity than DAB, so it’s not that surprising that vinyl offers a more enriching musical experience than the bee in the bottle sound of your laptop speakers.
Vinyl albums and singles are living, breathing sound recordings. When you listen to something on record, you subtly wear it in. As the pops and crackles begin to appear over time, the vinyl becomes personalised to the owner and you can tell their listening habits and favourite tracks. Records tell a story - but not just in the recording. The sleeve notes and artwork are equally important. Soundway is a small independent label specialising in untapped world music and it’s grown through vinyl alone. Think about that for a minute, new music that’s never been discovered before is being heard for the first time on vinyl. When the label released Panama! Latin, Calypso and Funk on the Isthmus 1965-75, not only did it open your ears to the loping cumbia rhythm, but the extensive liner notes and rare images opened your eyes to the country, its culture and the setting in which the music was created. That’s a lot of enriching information to have and to hold.
So, with the most successful Record Store Day event to date now behind us, take time out to think about what resurgence in vinyl actually means for music. Firstly, it means that while the numbers are niche, many of those stores and second hand stalls don’t feature in the official figures and need to be added on top of the top line. Secondly, it’s a rare growth story which bucks a decade long southward trend in recorded music. Learning from what’s growing, as opposed to lobbying about what’s in decline, might help understand how to engage the consumer again.
Will Page is Chief Economist of PRS for Music, which represents songwriters, authors and music publishers.
Vinyl albums and singles are living, breathing sound recordings. When you listen to something on record, you subtly wear it in. As the pops and crackles begin to appear over time, the vinyl becomes personalised to the owner and you can tell their listening habits and favourite tracks. Records tell a story - but not just in the recording. The sleeve notes and artwork are equally important. Soundway is a small independent label specialising in untapped world music and it’s grown through vinyl alone. Think about that for a minute, new music that’s never been discovered before is being heard for the first time on vinyl. When the label released Panama! Latin, Calypso and Funk on the Isthmus 1965-75, not only did it open your ears to the loping cumbia rhythm, but the extensive liner notes and rare images opened your eyes to the country, its culture and the setting in which the music was created. That’s a lot of enriching information to have and to hold.
So, with the most successful Record Store Day event to date now behind us, take time out to think about what resurgence in vinyl actually means for music. Firstly, it means that while the numbers are niche, many of those stores and second hand stalls don’t feature in the official figures and need to be added on top of the top line. Secondly, it’s a rare growth story which bucks a decade long southward trend in recorded music. Learning from what’s growing, as opposed to lobbying about what’s in decline, might help understand how to engage the consumer again.
Will Page is Chief Economist of PRS for Music, which represents songwriters, authors and music publishers.
