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  1. So trendy Vinyl sales are outstripped by cd sales by more than 325 percent yet the cd is dead?
    Go figure.
    Depressing that so many people are streaming though – deprives artists of proper revenue but the flip side is artists are touring more (though ticket prices much higher).

    • Don’t think it is dead, but is not flourishing. Probably gone from 95% or so of sales to 15% in 20 years. Vinyl can cost about 3 times as much which makes overall revenue similar and the article says that demand is twice what the pressing plants can produce.

  3. It appears that increasing numbers of artists are either streaming only, or streaming and releasing physical formats some time later.
    The new Sam Outlaw album Popular Mechanics for instance. There is no sign of a physical release whereas Blue Rodeo released a stream of their new album Many A Mile and then took a few weeks (at least in this country) to release it as CD or vinyl.

  4. My consumption doesn’t count then? I don’t stream or buy discs of any ilk, I download and save to hard drive. I think I am one of a large segment that has been ignored by that list, at least as big as CD sales (and I would bet quite a bit bigger).

  5. Factor in that much stuff doesn’t come out on CD, and that the nearest I am to an establishment that actually stocks the things is about an hour away. That can’t be unique.

    I’ve virtually given up on the reissue industry, preferring instead to 1. listen to what I have (more than enough), 2. wait for the record fairs (March and October), and 3. buy a few CDs straight from Ace around my birthday. Even stopped buying Mojo/Uncut etc.

    Other than that I don’t instead to give it any more money in 2022 than I did in 2021.
    It hasn’t played ball by me, I’m not playing ball by it.

  7. Like some others around here I`m an old git who ONLY listens to and buys physical music releases*.

    I will NEVER stream, I don`t like it that artists are constantly rippied off by Spotify and thier ilk. I very much doubt I would be able to listen to streamed music knowing most artists are struggling to make a living.

    *I have paid for and downloaded music but very rarely, in fact the only time I can remember is when I downloaded The Beach Boys `Sunshine Tomorrow/Wake The World/Friends Sessions….` which was the only way to obtain these items.

    I buy both CDs and LPs probably 50% for each format and my listening reflects that. I doubt I will change that in 2021 however my buying has to be 80% financed by selling stuff I no longer play. The other 20% from my dwindling available funds.

    • I respect that. However, I do find that streaming means I listen to loads more music and consequently buy heaps of stuff I might otherwise not have bought (notably country/Americana type artistes oft recommended on here which I can’t imagine taking a blind punt on). Like several above I also like to download to own, especially from Bandcamp.

        • If you think listening to an album from Bandcamp (from the website rather than the app) isn’t streaming, what is it?
          Listening to Amazon samples is also streaming but I’m sure it’s not represented in the stats.

          • When I listen to something on Bandcamp I am listening to samples posted on there by the artist. The artists are also not being ripped off by Bandcamp as they are by Spotify/Tidal etc.

            As I implied I sample music on Bandcamp and so far I have bought the physical release every time.

            Listening to a 30 second sample on Amazon is NOT streaming, I have never listened to the Amazon music app, which I could do but I have principles.

            Please don’t try to paint me as a music thief, I will never subscribe to those sites which ARE run by thieves.

            • Trouble is, sites like Spotify simply aren’t thieves. They only operate because the people who own the music agree to it – and get paid handsomely for it. These are mostly exactly the same people who get paid when you buy cds or vinyl. They own the rights to the music – some are the artists themselves but the vast majority are a very small number of record companies.

              Spotify have no more idea how much artists actually get paid for a stream than the person on the till at your local HMV knows what a cd sale generates a band – because neither pay them direct. They pay the rights owner, who then pays the artist whatever royalty they have agreed.

              And that could well be a really shitty royalty. Record companies have a long history of screwing artists. It didn’t start with streaming – it’s just given them new ways to do it. And they – not Spotify – are doing very nicely. Spotty handed over $5bn in royalties in 2020, which suggests the total steaming payout once you include Apple, Amazon etc in at $15bn.

              In the rush to demonise streamers, no one seems to remember that before they came along, sites like Napster and Pirate Bay were in the ascendency, and they actually are thieves. Worse, the it lets the record labels off the hook, so they can shaft artists again, just like they did every time before, and probably still are on every cd, every stream.

              • Exactly. Very well explained, and much less dull than I would have done.

                For an example of how a label rips off an artist, I know of one performer who is charged artwork, packaging, shipping and distribution rates… on every stream.

                  • As m’learned friend states below, there is no return for streaming on Bandcamp. Bandcamp do not charge a fee for streaming.

                    It is up to the band to decide how much of the album they want to make available for streaming (free listening). All of my stuff is free to listen to – so far – mainly because Quarantunes was a release valve for me, so I’m happy for it to be out in the world for people to hear. It has already served its main purpose for me.

                    Bandcamp do a pretty good job of paying the music creators for purchases.

                • I guess that as you need to use the website, most pre-purchase Bandcamp are for sampling so not being rewarded kind of makes sense. The app (and things like Sonos) only allow streaming if you’ve already bought the tracks.

  8. I wouldn’t call a rise of 0.4% towards vinyl sales Soaring.
    Statistically pretty insignificant if you ask me.
    But then I don’t see where you’ve got those figures from. They don’t seem to be in the article you linked, where a rise of 8% over 2020’s figure is given.

    I’ve recently signed up to Tidal, on an ultra-cheap trial offer, to see how it compares to Spotify.
    When it’s working properly it’s really good, but I’ve been getting occasional annoying connection problems. i.e. repeatedly dropping out mid-stream* and twice last week being unable to connect at all on the first attempt.That kind of thing’s something I’ve never had with Spotify. Used to get it with the BBC iPlayer in it’s earliest days.

    * Yesterday and the day before streaming King Crimson’s “Happy With What You Have To Be Happy With / Level Five / EleKtriK”.

            • The point is vinyl sales are up around 8-10% and CD sales are down about 12-15%. As I said to my first girlfriend, it may be small but it is getting bigger.

              • Hmm. What are you going to do in five years time when the inevitable happens? Jump for joy?

                If the record industry stocked CDs on the High Street (a quaint idea, I know) they’d sell more CDs.

                • Don’t understand as usual. I prefer vinyl but also buy CDs. Youngsters like streaming and some (like my daughter) also like vinyl, generally they have little interest in CDs.

                • It’s not up to the record industry unless Universal or one of the others invested in a chain of shops to sell CDs. Retailers decide what they want to sell and if they’ve got any sense it will be what the majority of their customers want rather than what a minority think they ought to stock.

                  • You’re wrong.
                    Since when does the maker of something not have a vested interest in where it might be sold?

                    People in the local town where I live don’t buy CDs because there are no CDs to buy.
                    It’s a self-fulfilling prophesy.

                    We have this discussion every time and it really is that stark.

                    • OK, I’ll bite: have the local townsfolk made a pact never to buy a CD from an internet shop and have it delivered? Unless you are monitoring everyone’s post, how do you know that their resolve remains firm?

                    • Nonsense.

                      There’s all this demand for cds that’s not being met, but some kind of shady cabal of retailers have decided to forgo making money because…… because what? If the demand is as obvious as you think it is, why hasn’t it been met?

                      Retailers don’t stock stuff that people don’t want to buy, or can get elsewhere more cheaply. It really is that stark.

                    • fitterstoke – errrr – internet shops?

                      Baked Beans.
                      Supermarket.
                      If a supermarket starts putting baked beans in the stock room so that every time someone wants baked beans they have to ask a member of staff for baked beans, sales of baked beans go down. People find something else to buy.

                      A large percentage of CD purchases in the era of £50 man were off-the-cuff sales, almost like chocolate bars by the counter of a shop… if they are not there people go out of the habit of buying them.
                      Exactly the same thing happened to vinly sales thirty years ago. Shops stopped stocking the stuff, so people simply stopped buying it. I did. It became too much of a chore to ask every time “I don’t want the CD version, have you got the record?”

                      Internet shops, eh?? Don’t overthink this.

                      fortune eight – “nonsense?”…
                      Can you explain the thinking of W.H. Smith? I’ve lived in this town for 6 years now and I’ve never once seen a person buy a book in my local store. I must have gone in there a thousand times. NOT ONE BOOK, and they stock hundreds and hundreds of them. Why?

                    • So what prompted this decision to stop stocking cds if there’s all this demand? Demand seemingly undiminished by streaming or online suppliers?

                    • Hi deramdaze – this is in reply to your last comment, about WH Smith, but the “reply” button has disappeared.

                      I’ve been pondering what you have said about CD sales, and I know you’ve raised this argument before. Much as I am tempted by the “retailers don’t know what they are doing” stance, I’m afraid I have to agree with what the majority view appears to be on this. People these days, in my experience, generally don’t really want CDs. I think we really are a dwindling breed.

                      RE WH Smith and books. It’s Christmas that does it, isn’t it? These books sit out on shelves for most of the year with very little sales, but serve to consolidate in people’s minds that “WH Smith is the place to buy books”… then when Christmas comes along, books are still one of those things which seem like a worthy present, so people remember “WH Smith is the place to buy books”, and they make a killing that supports the shop for the rest of the year. Isn’t that the way it works?

                      A CD these days, for whatever reason, just doesn’t have the allure of a book as a present. I was actually thinking of buying CDs as presents for a couple of people this Christmas, then realised they probably wouldn’t appreciate it because they already have Spotify or whatever. A book seems different, it still seems to have weight in today’s world, despite Audible and the Kindle and suchlike.

                      I would bet WH Smith have reached that conclusion themselves, after looking at Christmas sales figures over the last couple of decades and comparing book sales to CD sales.

                    • You’re right fitterstoke … DO start thinking. No irony intended.

                      Actually, I think the record industry (retailers less) know EXACTLY what they’re doing.

                      Someone alluded as to exactly why CDs (and vinlys remember – no vinlys in the average British town – remember that) aren’t on the High Street, and they’re right… royalties…
                      The record companies no longer pay the royalties they were obliged to do with physical product. Someone else said it above.

                      Similarly, rampant greed was the reason for the demise of vinly in the dire 1980s.
                      1985… most (all?) of the Doors’ LPs would cost you £3.49 each.
                      No more than five years later, the industry could put the same recording on a CD, no liner notes, no extras, and charge £13.49. Factor in easier transportation of the new product, cheaper production, and they must have been making 4 times, maybe 5 times, the amount they had on that product in 1985.
                      It’s the same scam… now they just don’t pay the acts any money!

                      Now I’m off to the greengrocer’s shop to buy an apple, unless, of course, greengrocers have stopped selling apples since I last went.

                      And cheer up peeps, the dire 1980s’ “socialite,” Maxwell, is going down. Now for Prince Philip’s favourite son.
                      It’s a good news day.

                    • Not that I’m supporting DD’s view at all, but he has correctly hit one dull fact: Spotify made a profit for the first time in 2020.

                      €23M profit on a turnover of €2.15bn (a wafer-thin 1%) is miniscule.

                      Spotify do actually pay the rights holders (i.e. record labels), but the way the money is then divided up between label and artists, and among the multiple artists, is a big mess.

                  • I bought an Ace Records CD in a record shop in Norwich for £15, it was £11.99 direct from ACE. I bought it because I like the shop and could afford to support it. The guy in the shop apologised for the price and explained that they have to pay the same price as everyone else less VAT. They have a 40% mark up, and then add 20% VAT. Clearly this makes them completely uncompetitive compared to the internet.

                    Like most small record shops now they rely on vinyl sales. Ace know their business model, but it seems ridiculous to me that they don’t do any favours to record shops who could shift their product.

                    • A mate of mine used to have a record shop (Pink Pig in Earlestown near Warrington).

                      He had the same issues as the shop @Alias bought his Ace CD. He used to order his stock with another record shop owner to reduce costs. It wasn’t the lack of sales that shut him down, a greedy landlord did that.

    • My figures came from the second and third sentences in the Beeb article, which were a bit misleading:

      23% of physical sales (up 8% on last year), were vinyl, but 76% were on CD, and bugger all (1.3)% on cassette. But 80% were not physical.

      BPI will publish the actual figures on Tuesday.

      Stuttering flow mid-stream, is that a prostrate thing?

  9. Also: if Abba sold more vinyl (say total 50,000) than Adele, has anybody seen any of the remainder of the 500,000 vinyl Adele albums discounted? Or have they been melted down?

  10. If Newcastle United get 10% more points in the last 19 matches than they got in their first 19 matches, they will get relegated.
    A great season in vinly stats world!

  11. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/vinyl-sales-abba-music-snobbery-b1983825.html?fbclid=IwAR3l-1fiVuQ_ExzLWaTAz1vPEwsuTPSmlOj7CE1d-jLY4OZmKt__PuL24jg

    Article in today’s Independent. I’m baffled at her bafflement at the appeal of vinyl.

    “I’ve met more than my share of ‘musos’ who think they’re somehow superior because of their taste in music. Having a showy collection of vinyl – that owners have to pull out and parade in front of uninterested guests stifling yawns – is a display of pretentiousness that turns me right off.” – Gulp! That’s the last time I invite Katie Edwards to one of my dinner parties!

  12. Apropos of nothing very much, when did records / LPs become ‘vinyls’ (or vinlys in AW parlance)? I heard someone on the telly the other day saying how much she loved playing her vinyls. Is this an affectation amongst ‘young people’ or a term coined by the record industry to pass LPs off as something new and sellable? I think we should be told.

  13. I use streaming either as try before you buy or I sometimes buy the lp but carry on streaming for reasons of quality or convenience.
    I use Tidal hifi plus and they have just introduced direct artist payments where 10% of your monthly subscription goes directly to whichever artist you listened to the most that month and sometime next year royalties from your sub will go the artists you listened to rather rather than into a general pool. I’m sure the devil will be in the detail and it only seems to be the hifi plus sub but it’s a start.

    • It’s easy to conflate (a) “Spotify don’t pay labels enough” and (b) “labels don’t pay artists enough for streams” into (c) “Spotify don’t pay artists enough”. But Spotify do pay what they agreed to pay to the labels.

      I’m not defending any of it, but I’ve worked for enough startups to know that somebody gets rich (usually on shares/dividends/venture capital investment) even if the company never makes a profit on paper and the employees get made redundant. Several times over in my ‘career’.

      PS I don’t use Spotify, although I do know some people who work there.

      • The way you worded your second paragraph makes it sound like you yourself are one of those chancers who got rich from a failed company, “several times over”! You kept that quiet!

        • It was late when I wrote it… Sadly, I’m always one of the plebs who get made redundant – usually by the start-up founder, who drives off into the sunset in a shiny new Maserati.

          I was once offered a job in a startup where I’d be ‘paid’ in share options. My brain was thinking “You can eff right off” but my mouth said “But how will that pay my mortgage?”

          I gave up working for startups when I hit 40, probably 10 years too late – I already had a mortgage and kids.

  15. What baffles me here are the amount of cassettes still being sold. Who are releasing on tape? Surely only collectors buying and not listening

    Who even has a working tape deck under 10’years old??

    • I bought the last ACR album on cassette, because it came free with the 24-bit Flac download. Or the other way round. It still has the shrink wrap on, even though I do have a working player.

      Unfortunately, the 24-bit files were mastered by the same muppet who did the CD, so I ended up buying the (green, sigh) vinyl in order to have a listenable copy.

      Also, the linked Beeb article explains it:

      “The revival arguably has more to do with marketing than any real appetite for the format, however.

      Most artists now offer signed cassettes on their official website, frequently in bundles with CD or vinyl copies of the same album.

      Fans often have no choice but to accept the cassette as part of the bundle; and each copy of the record handily counts as a separate sale on the official chart.”

  16. Those of us still entranced by bright shiny CDs might be interested in the tax dodgers’ sale – looks like mainly 2021 releases with some Afterword favourites in amongst the failed latest album from 90s popstars.

    https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?rh=n%3A27348743031&fs=true&ref=lp_27348743031_sar

    Similar titles in the Fopp sale which, in Cambridge, extended to around 20 CDs in total. The “clearance” vinyl section had numerous albums reduced from around the £28 mark to that tempting “must buy” £24 price point.

  18. Digging through the BPI figures to year end 2021, these are the highlights (dull-lights?):

    (Total; change 2020 to 2021; total)

    Total album “sales” 159.3M; +2.5%; 100.0%
    Streaming Equivalent* 132.4M; +5.7%; 83.1%
    Digital Download 4.6M; -23.1%; 2.9%
    CD 14.4M; -10.5%; 9.0%
    Vinyl 5.3M; +10.4%; 3.3%
    Cassettes 0.23M; +10.6%; 0.14%

    “Interesting” (dull) details:

    (*) Streaming Equivalent Albums = number of streamed albums divided by 1000 (for premium ad-free streaming services) and divided by 6000 for free with-ads streaming services.

    10M streams is the equivalent of 10,000 CD sales.

    1,918 artists were streamed over 10M times in 2021. “It means nearly twice as many artists are now earning meaningful royalties as could do so in the CD era” (1,092 artists achieved 10,000 CD sales in 2007.)

    OFFICIAL ARTIST ALBUMS CHART 2021 Top 40 albums:

    1. Adele – 30
    2. Ed Sheeran – =
    3. ABBA – Voyage
    4. Olivia Rodrigo – Sour
    5. Queen – Greatest Hits
    6. Dua Lipa – Future Nostalgia
    7. Ed Sheeran – Divide
    8. Elton John – Diamonds
    9. Fleetwood Mac – 50 Years: Don’t Stop
    10. Dave – We’re All Alone In This Together

    2021 Vinyl chart:

    1. ABBA – Voyage
    2. Adele – 30
    3. Fleetwood Mac – Rumours
    4. Ed Sheeran – =
    5. Amy Winehouse – Back To Black
    6. Nirvana – Nevermind
    7. Queen – Greatest Hits
    8. Lana Del Rey – Chemtrails Over The Country Club
    9. Wolf Alice – Blue Weekend
    10. Harry Styles – Fine Line

    Does anyone really still buy Queen’s Greatest Hits?

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