Just when you thought you'd seen the last of the shiny black vinyl record albums getting pulled from their cardboard sleeves for one more spin on the turntable, think again. The LP is back as sales are up and apparently nostalgia is in.
While the numbers are still small compared with other record sales, since 2009 sales of vinyl records have increased 15% annually, while overall album sales have dropped 8.4% in 2013, according to Billboard. Of the 289.4 million albums sold last year, 6.1 million were of the vinyl variety, so while sales are up on the vinyl side, they still make up a small sliver of total album sales, coming in at 2 percent of the total.
However, the steady increase over the last five years cannot be denied. Coupled with the subsequent drop in digital album sales (down 6% in 2013), which were hailed as the future of music over the last decade, the renaissance in vinyl is worth noting -- and many music lovers have.
"It's astounding to see, but so many music lovers identify with the artwork on album covers that was such a significant part of the pop culture back in the '60s and '70s," began Jim Cummins, a man who knows a thing or two about album covers, as he shot quite a few of the more iconic for the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin as a professional photographer. "There is a connection with vinyl and the covers of so many of those albums that will never go away and I think a younger audience is discovering that too."
For baby boomer Debbie Hammond, a 65-year-old mother of two daughters that have unsuccessfully tried to drag her into the digital music age, that connection runs deep, but she says the audio quality is playing a major role in vinyl's revival as well.
"There's just no comparison in the sound quality," she said. "All the compression that goes on with a digital audio file just flattens it out to me. I still find listening to vinyl a more engaging experience."
Perhaps all that's left to say is, Viva Las Vinyl!
