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New figures just released before the 10th Record Store Day show how the annual event has boosted the vinyl revolution. The U.S. independent record retailers taking part in the Saturday April 22 event may expect their vinyl sales to leap by as much as 321%, based on Nielsen Music statistics. The event has spread around the world and its new releases in 2017 honor late stars such as Prince, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen and Leon Russell as well as acts from Sting to The War on Drugs.
The local independent shops are fighting for sales with online stores, big supermarkets and other retailers. The continuing re-emergence of the vinyl LP is all the more remarkable when streaming has overtaken all other formats.
Vinyl sales at the smaller shops have increased by an average of 186% on all Record Store Days since its inaugural year in 2008. Vinyl makes up 80% of their sales on the day. Last year, the 321% jump gave indie record stores a 74% market share for vinyl, up from a share of 40% the week before, Nielsen says.
The resurgence of vinyl initially baffled industry watchers who spoke of its potential bad qualities with non-digital discs that might warp or scratch, need cleaning for dust before playing and extra care to avoid the stylus damaging grooves.
Despite all this, Nielsen says that vinyl LPs’ total industry share of all physical sales has increased from a mere 0.2% in 2007 to a healthy 11.1% in 2016. Vinyl has long been championed by DJs, by audiophiles for its heavyweight versions, and by art collectors for its larger packaging.
It is also easy to see why many customers are enticed by Record Store Day’s celebrations which include breakfast, beer, candy, face painting, raffles and of course, live music.
Total industry sales for vinyl have skyrocketed from just 990,000 units in 2007 to more than 13 million in 2016, a 1,225% surge over the last decade. The increase at independent retailers in this time has been 637%. This is happening at a time when their sales of all physical formats have declined 48%, showing the pressure on CDs especially.
The only bright spot again has been Record Store Day. In the last three years, it has seen sales of all physical formats surging briefly - a 91% growth in 2014, 47% in 2015, and 130% in 2016, temporarily doubling the stores’ weekly market share to 27%.
Out of many releases, this year’s Record Store Day titles include Bowie’s Cracked Actor, a previously unreleased live recording from Los Angeles in 1974, and BOWPROMO, which compromises some of the late star’s earliest demos. There are also many 12-inch maxi-singles from Prince and a CD reissue of Russell’s Guitar Blues. Another tribute is Like A Drunk In A Midnight Choir - Record Store Day Celebrates the Music of Leonard Cohen, an album curated by Fingerprints Records owner Rand Foster. Sting’s Live At The Bataclan chronicles the return of music to the Paris theater a year after a terrorist attack, while The War On Drugs offers a 12-inch single of its track “Thinking of a Place.”
