Skip to main content

Vinyl sales are still on the rise in 2015, fueling a revival that keeps pointing up

vinyl recorder app
AngeloDeVal / Shutterstock.com

It looks like the vinyl resurgence isn’t going away any time soon. In fact, for 2015, it may be getting stronger. Vinyl album sales between January and March of this year were 53 percent higher than the first three months of 2014, according to a recent Nielsen report.

Driving the uptick are catalog albums, defined as a record released at least 18 months prior. The report states that catalog vinyl album sales are up 66 percent. It also notes that current vinyl releases are up 37 percent in the first three months of 2015.

Alongside the news, Billboard broke out the top-selling vinyl records since 2010 which includes both recent and historic blockbuster LPs. The Beatles’ “Abbey Road” tops the list, which features other classics from the likes of Pink Floyd and Bob Marley, but also includes current bands like Mumford & Sons, Jack White, and the Arctic Monkeys.

billboard-top-vinyl-chart-2010-2015

This is just the latest news solidifying the current love affair with the audiophile-favorite analog format, which hit 9.2 million units in sales last year (up from 6.1 million in 2013). And the trend has been building for some time now: Vinyl album sales in the U.S. have grown 260 percent since 2009, according to Nielsen.

While vinyl’s uptick provides an uplifting story within an industry on the downturn, vinyl sales are still a niche market. In the US, vinyl sales made up just 3.6 percent of all albums sold last year, according to Nielsen. Globally, vinyl sales account for only 2 percent of industry revenues, according to the IFPI.

There are certainly signs that, at the very least, millions will continue to buy vinyl each year. Most tellingly, we recently reported that vinyl consumers are largely music fans under 35, spelling a relatively bright future for the format. In other recent heartening news for vinyl enthusiasts, a Midwestern vinyl manufacturer bought 13 new record presses, just to keep up with demand for new vinyl orders.

While we certainly can’t say vinyl is en route to overtake streaming music anytime soon — or ever — the format is poised to stay on consumer’s radars for the near future and beyond. And for those who once feared vinyl would be lost to the sands of time long ago, that’s a comforting thought.

Editors' Recommendations

Chris Leo Palermino
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Chris Leo Palermino is a music, tech, business, and culture journalist based between New York and Boston. He also contributes…
The 6 best smart speakers for music lovers
amazon echo studio 3d smart speaker lifestyle2

We spend plenty of time talking about how smart today’s smart speakers are — but if you love high-quality audio and uncompressed music, you’re probably interested in the speaker part. What smart speakers will actually give you a worthwhile sound experience as well as extra features that work well with your smart home?

We’ve rounded up the top smart speakers you should look at if you’re serious about your music — starting with Amazon’s own Echo Studio, a speaker dedicated to high-performance sound setups.

Read more
What is spatial audio? Apple’s 3D sound feature fully explained
Person listening to spatial audio using Apple AirPods Max headphones.

At WWDC 2021 (Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference), Apple officially added support for spatial audio with Dolby Atmos Music for Apple Music. It quickly became a popular format among consumers, too: Apple estimates that by February 2022, playback of spatial audio tracks had quadrupled from just a few months prior as people experimented with the format. But what exactly is spatial audio? How is it different from (or the same as) Dolby Atmos? And what kind of audio equipment do you need to listen to it?

There's a lot of ground to cover, and some of it is a bit technical, but we're going to break it all down in easy-to-understand terms. You'll be a spatial audio expert in minutes, and you'll know exactly how to access this growing trend in movie and music streaming.
What exactly is spatial audio?

Read more
The best podcasts of 2022
best podcasts

Whether you've already stored all your favorite podcasts in your app of choice, ready for listening, or are new to the world of podcasts, there's no denying their popularity. Podcasts are everywhere these days and have become some of the most beloved entertainment and education mediums worldwide. Whatever you're into, from tech and video game chat to world news and politics or true crime, there are plenty of specialized interest shows to choose from.

With so many podcasts available, there’s no way that you can listen to all of them. To help you out, no matter your interests, we've gathered a variety of shows to turn you on to your next great listen.

Read more