Posted on 03/10/2023 7:56:12 PM PST by BenLurkin
Vinyl albums outsold CDs last year for the first time since 1987, according to the Recording Industry Association of America's year-end report released Thursday.
It marked the 16th consecutive year of growth in vinyl, with 41 million albums sold — compared to 33 million CDs.
Streaming is still the biggest driver of the music industry's growth, making up 84% of recorded-music revenue, but physical music formats saw a remarkable resurgence in the past couple of years.
The pandemic led to a spike in demand for vinyl records, driven largely by younger buyers. Vinyl has become a major part of artists' marketing campaigns.
Artists including Adele and Taylor Swift made pop a fast-growing genre on vinyl, and many independent manufacturers struggled to ramp up and meet demand after years of decline. That's forced some bands to push back album releases and stopped small artists from being able to press records.
The recorded-music industry's fortunes started to improve in 2016 as streaming services grew, overcoming the decline in CD sales and online music piracy. Paid subscription services including Spotify and Apple Music brought in $10.2 billion from 92 million paid subscribers in 2022, topping $10 billion for the first time, according to RIAA.
Ad-supported streaming, like YouTube, brought in $1.8 billion and made up 11% of recorded-music revenue. Revenue from digital downloads, including both albums and single tracks, dropped 20% to $495 million.
Vinyl revenue grew 17% and topped $1.2 billion last year, making up nearly three-quarters of the revenue brought in by physical music. At the same time, CD revenue fell 18% to $483 million, the RIAA said.
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
Saw a newly produced personal tape player at Target not long ago... Not sure who green lighted new production runs, but looks like someone is trying to get cassettes back into play too.
This is mostly a result of better mastering and fallout from "the loudness war"
I suspect there is a little bit of reverb from the speakers vibrating the needle too.
I have a pioneer cd recorder and have recorded records to cd and you could not tell the difference.
Then there is the whole album art thing, I remember trying to find all the faces on the 'Days of future past' album cover. You cannot do that with the cd.
I loved the Moody Blues, hadn’t thought of their music in many years.
Records can and often do sound great but overall, I think CDs sound much better because they have none of those problems and they huge dynamic range.
How an album is mastered has a lot to do as far as how good, or bad, the final print is and that's regardless of the medium.
As far as streaming formats go 44.1khz 16 bit files (CD quality) ones sound great as do other "lossless" formats. But man, when you get to mp3 files, especially low res common types like 128kps, they sound ratty - I cringe when listening to them. Even high res mp3 files like those mastered to 320kbps have a "rattiness" to them compared to lossless formats.
8-tracks are coming back. Invest now while they’re still cheap.
Now she thinks her dad is way cool.
I disagree, my kids buy them for exactly that reason, the sound, also the art cover is a real thing for them. I see it more as a resurgence of audiophiles (armature ones) and something collectable that ACTUALLY provides an aesthetic.
People want to own things, it is our nature, the world is taking much of that away, vinyl records gives that back, you OWN a thing and that thing can provide both audio and visual stimulations. One can find the spinning of a record provides a somewhat Feng shui moment of visual focus. I remember myself getting lost in the sounds and watching of a vinyl turning.
I just dropped some coin (actually $45 per, and very reasonable as it includes shipping from Japan) for reissues of the first four Japanese Who LP’s. Featuring alternative Cover art and pressed on colored vinyl. Examples below, not were I bought mine from.
Then there was the ritual of using a gatefold album cover to assist in the cleaning of certain herbal substances to remove the unsmokeable seeds and stems, as a prelude to an evening of grooving on the cool sounds!
You can’t do that with a CD, or a streamed digital file.
I support many rock artists by buying in vinyl in addition to having a digital copy. Artists are getting the shaft at almost every turn, and for those out there still killing it on the road, many of my favorites are in their 50s now, I’ll gladly fork over for merch and vinyl.
“a fad that will fade because most of the consumers of vinyl today are millennials and gen-z “
The format is irrelevant because their tastes in music and art are just as lousy as their tastes in food, clothing, hair styles, humor, etc.
As the folks warned me, vinyl is mortal, but you do need a whole lot of equipment to make digital sound as good as newborn vinyl.
ping
Some folks like “retro”.
Face it, with the advent of mp3 and other digital formats, a CD is a limiter when thousands of tunes can be put on a USB for use anywhere - like cars...
Yes but there are no USB snobs.
Vinyl Retro is the realm of audio snobs
Today is streaming from your own cloud
Analog equipment provides natural overtones. Digital tends to give unrelated pitch overtones, and thus sound “harsh”.
I agree with you on wanting to hold a “real” thing, even stated as much… go look back on my posts here, but the sound (while I agree and prefer analog to digital) is not the driver.
Like I stated before, these “kids” aren’t audiophiles, their setups to play these records by and large can’t compare in any way to the average systems folks were using back in the heyday of vinyl, let alone the high end systems.
I buy vinyl and cds all the time, very little streaming actually, I prefer the physical media.
But I’m a dinosaur so I guess it’s a generational thing.
:) I get they aren’t “audiophiles.” I even chuckle as 99% of any home theater system and room acoustics can’t possibly provide enough quality and isolation for an average person to ever notice the difference audibly or visually these days.
Still they like the feel of the music via vinyl so in their minds they are audiophiles.
The art and ownership and “feel of the process” is a big thing though and that is a real inherent value that can be defended.
Those old Japanese pressings on the Toshiba vinyl are really nice.
I picked up a Micheal Schenker live at Budokan a month ago, even has the obi intact, great sounding album.
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