Is Vinyl Still Popular?

If you’re considering investing in a vinyl music system, you may have this nagging thought in the back of your head wondering if vinyl will still be around and popular in the years to come. Don’t worry, you’re not alone! We get this question all the time. "Is vinyl still popular?"

While none of us are lucky enough to own a crystal ball, you can usually look at history and past trends to make an educated guess on the future of an industry. One variable that’s hard to predict is a disrupter, which is when something totally new comes along that’s far superior to the existing technology. Think about what Netflix did to Blockbuster. Since vinyl is an older technology with many different reasons for its appeal, we don’t really see anything like it coming out to replace it. It’s possible something would appear that could totally replace the way we listen to music, but we don’t know about anything on the horizon like this.

If we simply look at history, vinyl sales hit their peak the year Audio Advice began, in 1978. That year vinyl sales in the US were $2.5 billion. The CD format was released in 1984, which was a big disrupter to the vinyl industry. By 1993, vinyl sales in the US had dropped from a peak of $2.5 billion to $10.6 million. That is one heck of a huge drop-off! CD sales that same year hit $6.5 billion and went on to hit their peak of $13.2 billion in 2000, which interestingly enough is the year before the iPod was introduced, which was another disrupter. 

Vinyl sales started coming back in 2005 and climbed to $418 million in 2018. While the stats are not out yet for 2019 at the time of this blog, it was predicted they would pass at least $450 million, surpassing CD sales for the first time in over 33 years. This is almost karma for vinyl in that as you may know, most LP’s spin at 33 ⅓ RPM!

All of these statistics come from the RIAA, which is short for the Recording Industry Association of America. What is interesting about the RIAA stats is they only track sales of new vinyl. Back in the 1970’s you never saw a used record store and very few stores had a used vinyl section at all. However, used vinyl sales today make up a huge part of the total market. There are over 1000 used record stores in the US today and the estimates are that total used sales are as big, if not bigger than sales of new vinyl. 

Looking at all this data points to a pretty bright future for vinyl. There is really nothing that can replace it as the medium is so unique. Add to the fact that many Indie bands only release their music on vinyl and vinyl pressing plants around the world are all running at full capacity. When a large company decides to get back into vinyl, that is another sign of its future. In 2018, Sony started pressing vinyl records again for the first time since 1989! 

More people are listening to music than ever before. It has become so easy to stream just about any song you would want, but if you want to buy a physical copy, nothing is better than an album. You can proudly display an album cover and browse through the liner notes like a magazine. There is just something unique about holding the physical album cover in your hands and passing it around to your friends as you listen.

We think another reason vinyl will continue to climb in popularity is, it's pretty much the opposite of the rest of the content world we live in. When we look at a newsfeed app, we have the ability to constantly flip from one article to another. Our social media outlets are the same way, it’s an endless list of different pictures, videos, and topics. Streaming music, which is immensely popular and a great way to figure out what vinyl you might want to own, normally leads us to skip from song to song and artist to artist even before the song is finished. 

Vinyl connects some of us to memories of our youth, but for a lot of people, the appeal is both about a social and/or relaxation experience. Browsing through a record collection after dinner with friends is just a ton of fun that will spur on all kinds of great conversation. Unlike a CD or streaming music service, when you start playing an LP record, it’s highly likely you’ll sit and listen for the entire album side. This puts you in a totally different state of relaxation than you might be after staring at your smartphone, searching and flipping through all kinds of music in the same amount of time. 

Audio enthusiasts into vinyl also prefer the pure analog sound of vinyl. Of course, to fully achieve this you need to be sure the record was recorded and mastered in the analog format, and that your system is pure analog with nothing digital in the signal path. One could argue over the superiority of vinyl over digital, but there is no question a good recording and vinyl pressing can sound just fantastic on a great system. 

With the large number of used and new record stores across the country now, the actual search for vinyl, especially through the used record bins, can be a lot of fun too. 

Our advice - if you’re thinking about jumping into the vinyl side of music, JUMP IN! If you want more relaxation in your life, you’ll be taking a big step towards that. If you like to entertain friends, you’ll quickly find a great new after-dinner diversion that keeps fun conversation going on into the wee hours! Through the process, you’ll also have some good times adding to your vinyl collection. 

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