“Vinyl sales are the saving the music business. Hallelujah!” How many times have we heard that in the past year?
The vinyl sales explosion theory is all based on percentage increases of very low figures. It’s a lot how the hype in the stock market works. You take a very bad figure. Don’t mention the figure. Apply the percentage increase, not the quantity increase and voila!, you have a solution.
Companies on the Australian Stock Exchange work on this formula daily and so does the music industry.
Vinyl has been often cited over the past year as the big growth factor in the music business. Stories of increases of 100% over one year, 200% over two years and 1000% over 5 years are common. However, we you look at the raw data, the figures are extremely low.
The biggest selling album on vinyl in the USA in the past year was Daft Punk ‘Random Access Memories’. It sold 49,000 copies. Justin Timberlake ‘The 20/20 Experience’ was at no 10. It sold 21,000 copies.
Vinyl sales of ever album in the Top 10 still make every album in the Top 10 a collectors item.
According to Nielsen SoundScan, here are the Top 10 albums on vinyl in the USA for 2013:
1. Daft Punk – Random Access Memories (49,000)
2. Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires Of The City (34,000)
3. Arcade Fire – Reflektor (31,000)
4. Mumford & Sons – Babel (27,000)
5. Mumford & Sons – Sigh No More (27,000)
6. Queens of the Stone Age – Like Clockwork (27,000)
7. Bon Iver – For Emma Forever Ago (23,000)
8. The Lumineers – The Lumineers (22,000)
9. The National – The Trouble Will Find Me (22,000)
10. Justin Timberlake – The 20/20 Experience (21,000)
——————————————————————————————————————————————
Stay updated with your free Noise11 daily music news email alert. Subscribe to Noise11 Music News here
Follow Noise11.com on Facebook and Twitter
