charts discussion Vinyl Sales Topped 5 million units in the UK on 2021

[gustavothehuman]

Vinyl purchases are now at their highest in 3 decades - over 5 million LPs have already been purchased over the past 12 months – a jump of 8% or higher on 2020 and a 14th consecutive year of growth since the format's low point in 2007.  Vinyl will have accounted for nearly a quarter of 2021 album purchases (predicted 23%), estimated to be at its highest level since 1990, when Phil Collins’ But Seriously was the biggest selling title.

 

Sales of CDs have steadily declining for around 17 years now - thanks at first to the introduction digital downloads, and then streaming services. But that may be changing, if ever so slightly. The drop-off in CD sales has reduced from 27% annually between 2018 – 2020 to just a predicted -12% in 2021, with sales boosted by CD-friendly releases from superstar artists such as Adele, Ed Sheeran and ABBA. This suggests that reducing demand for the format, which is nearing its 40th anniversary, may be bottoming out.

 

Though still just a fraction of overall UK recorded music consumption, cassettes now come as standard on many album releases. Final figures for 2021 are likely to show that around 190,000 tapes were purchased in the past 12 months – up by around a fifth (20%) on the year and the highest amount since 2003, when 243,000 tapes were sold and Now 54 was the year's biggest seller on the format. Among the most popular titles released on cassette in 2021 were Olivia Rodrigo's Sour, Dave's We're All Alone In This Together and Coldplay's Music of the Spheres.

 

More often than not, having an album available on physical formats plays a pivotal role in artists being able to achieve No.1 albums in the Official Albums Chart.  In 2021 to date in 40 of the 52 weeks of the year the album that topped the Charts did so thanks to combined CD, vinyl and cassette purchases accounting for over half the album's consumption in the week that it got to No.1 – a trend exemplified by Adele's album 30, which in its first five weeks of release saw 75% of its chart sales attributable to physical format purchases.

 

Full Article

 

Edited December 29, 2021 by gustavothehuman

[Johnny Jacobs]

Uk loves vinyl records wbk 

[Robert]

It’s great physical musical still has a platform

[gustavothehuman]

Not this being posted, I originally had scrapped it from my drafts 

Let me put the text into place, sorry guys! 

 

Edited December 29, 2021 by gustavothehuman

[Brando]

35 minutes ago, Johnny Jacobs said:

Uk loves vinyl records wbk 

UK vinyl sales 25% of total. US vinyl sales represented over 50% of overall physical sales this year

[Johnny Jacobs]

2 hours ago, Brando said:

UK vinyl sales 25% of total. US vinyl sales represented over 50% of overall physical sales this year

Huh? 

 

Oh wow thats shocking tbh 

[greento]

I bought too many vinyl this year 

 

not surprised to see the numbers rising still, hopefully another big increase in 2022

[georgechxng]

Adele's UK sales being 75% physicals whew 

[PopFan1996]

3 hours ago, Johnny Jacobs said:

Huh? 

 

Oh wow thats shocking tbh 

Who's that in your avi ?

OT: vinyl's resurgence is crazy

[family.guy123]

Quote

The title with the biggest first-week sales was ABBA’s Voyage(29,891) – the fastest seller on vinyl this century according to Official Charts.

The real queens of vinyl 

[Testosterone]

I could be wrong, but I feel like this year could be the peak of the vinyl resurgence in the UK, we all know vinyl production is at a stand still and this year had HUGE acts releasing Adele, ABBA, Ed, Coldplay. Also, the price of Vinyl in the UK is crazy, £29.99 - £34.99 is the standard price range so I know a lot of people are being priced out of the market.

 

Will be interesting to see if the market continues to grow.

[Shelter]

It’s great to see and even cassettes doing good too.