The LP Is Back [CHART]
The vinyl album LP continued its unlikely comeback in 2013, with sales in the United States reaching 6 million units. As opposed to CD sales which declined 14.5% and digital album sales which stagnated, LP sales grew by 32% from 4.55 million units in 2012. Overall album sales suffered an 8.4% decline, slumping to 289.4 million from 316 million units in 2012.
The LP Sales Chart:
You will find more statistics at Statista
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Good news. LP is much better than CD. Warm sound instead digital. Thanx for information.
The experience of putting on a record and the ritual is so opposite of clicking on an mp3. My uncle gave me his record collection, and i had a great time thinking about my uncle in the 70’s smoking weed and putting on his bowie records. Then I realized that i wanted to pass along my music collection to my children, and i didn’t want to just give them a hard drive and the mouse i used to use. Lame. So i started switching to vinyl and using the download codes for my precious mouse. Ha.
9 out of 10 people can’t tell on an average quality system (i.e $500 speakers, $400 amp, $300 CD player or so) versus vinyl.
I’ve done LP lovers and when I use to have record player would record the record to digital and than play it back and asked people which was which. As I said 9 out of 10 couldn’t tell. A fair amount guessed wrong.
When I used a top flight record player and top of the line speakers doing the test in high end stereo store it became somewhat noticeable (depending on the LP), but most people don’t have that type of resources.
Now add that fact that I’ve owned Dylan’s “Bring it All Back Home” on vinyl and had to buy a copy ever few years due wearing it out, and since I switch to digital I’m still on the same copy the cost savings that digital brings makes digital a winner to.
Sure I’d love great sound in my home. I’d also like a hot tub and a swimming pool. But right now I am budgeting to fix my kitchen tile.
Considering that AT&T made the compression for audio conversations to be multiplex over copper wire it cuts out the highs and lows… this fact alone shows that we need to stop trying to compare a voice audio compression which Mp3 is to something that is akin to recreating music the way it was made which is what a vinyl record does.
As for Vinyl being back it’s been coming back since 2008 and I’ll the digitalonly crowd are just mad because it’s the opposite of what the MP3 hucksters have been promoting and leads to uncomfortable thoughts like the quality of the sound and how it’s presented matter.
BTW For those that keep track of just things CDs according to Soundscan are still 57.2 of sales.
i should’ve known all you vinyl snobs would have left a novel of comments above mine