Trick or Trend? Vinyl Sales Surpassed Digital Downloads In The UK Last Week
As the war of the clouds rages on, musicians and labels alike have scrambled for the most lucrative mode of access to your ever-growing archives, digital or physical. One time-tested medium, however, seems to only be gaining force and ground with consumers. The answer, of course, is vinyl. And if we're to take a recent report from the ERA (Entertainment Retailers Association) to heart, vinyl's resurgence has become very real.
According to The Vinyl Factory, last week vinyl sales in the UK surpassed that of digital downloads for the first time in what we can only assume has been a long one. In a seven day stretch, cross-pond sales of wax hit £2.4m with digital downloads clocking in at only £2.1m. During the same week last year, downloads dwarfed vinyl sales with£4.4m sold to only £1.2m in vinyl. And while we're happy to see that music lovers are considering acetate more and more seriously in an age when music is basically free to those who know how to find it, we should note that this report also indicates that overall music sales are down, and that the uptick in vinyl sales could have more to do with Record Store Day and vinyl being generally more accessible in the UK (with supermarkets like Sainsbury’s and Tesco now getting in on the action.)
All of which is to say that whether this is trick or trend has yet to be determined. But time will tell and we'd love to be surprised by the outcome.
