Sales of vinyl records took in more money than that of digital music sales, according to sales figures published by the Entertainment Retailers Association.
The once considered revolutionary system, designed to eradicate all forms of tangible plastic disks of music over 20 years ago- is now being outsold by a method of listening that dates back 70 years.
In week 48 of 2016, Vinyls made £2.4m compared to the digital downloads at £2.2m
There are many reasons why this could be – of course more people are streaming, hence the inevitable decline in profits made by digital downloads.
Streaming is cheaper, faster and often of the same quality as buying music by the track or album.
It gives you more flexibility to listen to an entire song and not be stuck with it in your library if you don’t like it.
We are a generation with a 6-second attention span thanks to services like Vine, and we want what we want, and instantly.
Therefore, when music is paid for individually, it’s got to have something that sets it apart. This is where the vinyl comes in.
Songs, particularly old songs recorded before the age of digital music, carry a level of authenticity when played on vinyl that one simply cannot hear when listening to it through a pair of £300 Bose headphones, plugged into your iPhone 7- devices that people hadn’t even dreamed of existing when the song was made.
There is something incredibly wholesome about listening to Ella Fitzgerald, or early David Bowie the way they were made to be heard, it gives you an experience you just can’t get with a digital download.
There is also the unavoidable fact that vinyl copies of songs and albums are pricey. They typically cost almost twice what you’d pay for the digital copy, and therefore can sell less and still make more.
Maybe in a post-trump elected, post-Brexit, and pre-potentially-apocalyptic world, people just want to buy something that reminds them of a simpler time, where everything felt a little bit more real.
