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Vinyl records outsell CDs for the first time since 1987
The last time vinyl was on top, Jem dolls and Spuds MacKenzie were all the rage.
Do you have a record player that you still use? Do you find putting the needle on a record so much more satisfying than pressing "play" on a CD player? If so, you're in good company, since for the first time in decades, vinyl has come out on top.
The Recording Industry Association of America released their 2022 year-end report and announced that for the sixteenth year in a row vinyl revenue has continued to climb — and they just hit an important milestone.
After a year of 17% growth in vinyl sales, the old-school music format has overtaken CD sales for the first time since New Coke was on the shelves. In 2022, vinyl accounted for a massive 71% in physical format sales.
According to the report, a whopping 41 million units of vinyl were sold last year.
Mitch Glazer, Chairman and CEO of the RIAA, said "Music lovers clearly can’t get enough of the high-quality sound and tangible connection to artists vinyl delivers and labels have squarely met that demand with a steady stream of exclusives, special reissues, and beautifully crafted packages and discs."
If you want to catch the vinyl wave, you can find record players and classic vinyl albums in the MeTV Mall.
Elvis - The Stare
$19.95
Sun Record Co. - Logo
$19.95
Jimi Hendrix - Woodstock
$19.95
Yes - Yessongs
$21.95
Elvis - Long Live the King
$19.95
Elvis - Mugshot
$19.95
Yes - Logo
$21.95
Willie Nelson - Horseshoe
$19.95
CBGB - Logo (Gray)
$19.95
Jimi Hendrix - Kiss the Sky
$19.95
Yes - Logo
$21.95
Elvis - TCB
$19.95
AC/DC - Back in Black
$19.95
Willie Nelson - Horseshoe
$19.95
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87 Comments
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I still buy CDs for the lossless audio (and copy them to my computer). Some blame should go to digital distributors for not including the full album artwork with digital downloads and not standardizing the format early on.
Agreed! And I'd like to add that many artists are still releasing new material on compact discs, in spite of all the "doom and gloom" predictions regarding the medium's supposedly imminent demise. Many of them are also releasing stuff on vinyl as well (for the first time in years for some folks).
My favorite gospel group Rend Collective does new vinyl records and I have bought more than one copy of each.
Love my record player, love my LP collection, love that I sent my second oldest off to college with his player and LPs. Only bummer is I am too generous. He has the best collection and I am still working on getting my own copies of ones we mutually love. Eh, but it's worth it to know I trained him well. 😁
damm good for you! You did very well!
We are moving back to BEING HUMAN! (YAY!!) Humans are ANALOG Beings! NO!....to digital! I will always have my 'old school' stereo and my record collection. Nothing beats vinyl!!
I totally agree:) Computers no matter what are zeroes and ones - we humans are more frequencies than anything
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Don't hear any Networks complaining about the Digital Transition, which was many years ago. You can hope , but it's doubtful Television will ever go back to that format.
Totally agree. I live 55 miles from Hartford, CT and 75 miles from NYC and my cable company forces me to watch the long distant NYC channels that do nothing for this area and have been deleting local CT channels. The digital antennas are not strong enough to reach either location so I can't drop cable and put the rotor antenna up again to get my local OTA channels.
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Your terminology is a bit of a misnomer. All the channels your mentioning are broadcast in digital format. How your picking them up is reception. Television signals are no longer and haven't been broadcast in analog format for over a decade.
That is AMAZINGLY COOL! (-:
Most new vehicles no longer come with a CD player. I suspect this is contributing to a decline in CD sales which is matched up against steadily rising sales of vinyl.
I bought a new car three years ago, I asked the dealer where is The CD player? He just laughed. But I can still plug in my portable Cd player into the system.
Four years ago I rented a car to go out of state. I told the guy at the agency that I want a car with a CD player in it. He had to go to an office in a neighboring city to get one. But I had my CD player and took my box of about 70 CDs and rode off.
You can thank the recording industry for that crafty move.
The only retailer I know that sells CD's is Walmart, and they have an extremely limited selection. They do sell Vinyl, at ridiculous prices. I still buy used CDs, sometimes at 10 cents each.
Book and record stores are prevalent in my neighborhood. Two bookstores operate within a block of Macalester College, a record store is located a couple of blocks away (and has operated there for over 35 years), and there are other longtime record stores scattered across St.Paul and Minneapolis (Agharta Records, Down In The Valley, Barely Brothers Records, Urban Lights, and the grandaddy of them all, The Electric Fetus, where Prince would pick up vinyl when home).
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We had an honest-to-Jessica-Fletcher Barnes & Noble bookstore in my hometown for quite a few years--tote bags and bargain books on the first floor, mysteries, SF/fantasy, music and DVDs upstairs (oh, the time and money I spe t there). I can't say for sure why it went out of business, but they did get a new tenant for the building...Buffalo Wild Wings (I kid you not, a two-story Buffalo Wild Wings).
Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson? Oh, my, yes! [Just avoid Samba For Sherlock and The Last Sherlock Holmes Story. The first one was translated from Portuguese and must have lost a lot in translation, while the second one wants us to believe Mr. Holmes was also Jack the...no, I can't say it.]
Vinyl albums now retail for about $30 each... and since less CDs are being produced, *of course* they're outselling them... especially if you're going by dollar revenue and *not* unit sales...
Other than vintage LP collectors, I don't know *anyone* who's coughing up 30 bucks for those platters...
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Other than vintage LP collectors, I don't know *anyone* who's coughing up 30 bucks for those platters...
"demand"...translates into "greed'... let's bring back the Edison cylinder or the wire recorded...
greed is always there - then before it comes the market/consumer demand
unless the demand is created to fill the need for greed... If you don't believe me, watch any *As Seen on TV* commercial with their "Limited Quantities" shtick...
Oh I for sure believe you - I hear all the time "limited quantities" and "limited time". A lot of marketing BS speak (the other phrase is "up to" )
I have hundreds and hundreds of albums in boxes in our basement but no record player. I have been tempted to buy one but figured it would just add more clutter.
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remember the bird that would bob and dip it's nose in a glass of water?
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there it is! When I was a kid my parents for whatever reason had that thing on top of the frig..dont know why
We had one of those. Someone got it for Christmas as a gag gift. I think it was my Dad. I have a vague recollection. Nice memory.
I hear you. Mine haven’t moved in years.
I got rid of all my vinyl records years ago. I still have a few cassettes laying around, l don’t think that they will ever make a comeback!
Cassettes actually have been steadily making a comeback along with cassette walkman’s. Most current metal bands now release cassettes as an option for their new album releases (Megadeth, Ozzy Osbourne & Metallica for example). Stranger Things” along with 80s/90s nostalgia has had an influence & impact among young adolescents where the last season of “Stranger Things” plotline revolved around cassettes. My 9 year Son requested cassette tapes for Xmas & a walkman for his Bday, it was a trip shopping on ebay for cassette tapes of albums I used to own when I was his age.
I never would have imagined that cassettes would ever come back! I think that it’s great when young people “discover” things and especially music from the eighties and make them popular again.
A friend of mine bought Bruce Springsteen's Born In The USA on cassette, decided she didn't like it and sold it to me for five dollars. I've collected most of his albums on both cassette and CD (found a cassette of Greetings From Adbury Park for about three-fifty at Woolworth's...yep, I'm old). She decided a couple of months later that she liked Born In The USA after all and had to go buy another copy!
I, too, collect LPs and 45s. I have about 5,000 LPs and 13,000 45s. Most of mine are from 1949 - 1985. I like the oddball stuff, usually things no one has heard of (including me, until I listen to it).
They're from the 50's 60's and 70's. Go search on eBay yourself if you don't believe me.
Well, a good friend of mine for over 50 years has been a record dealer most of that time. He knows the market as good as anyone, so I'll trust both his word and my experiences...
No, I believe ya. My feeling was at my garage sale, if you see a song you like, you haven't heard it in a long time and can play it 15x in a row, a buck ain't such a bad deal.
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