Concerning news for all of those who cherish music in its tangible form: according to figures from Billboard magazine vinyl sales have suffered a huge 33% drop over the last year.
Sales of records from 34.9 million units in 2023 to 23.3 million this year. And it’s not just vinyl that is suffering. Sales of CD albums fell 19.5% and those of digital albums went down 8.3%. Overall album sales are down have dropped from 75.5 million units last year to just 57.5 million this year.
The reasons aren’t hard to work out. Somewhere down the line the vinyl revival was always going to reach the point when price began to curtail demand. To be blunt: it ain’t cheap. Walk into a branch of HMV and purchase a vinyl album and you’re unlikely to get change out of £30.
Most albums are in the £25 to £40 price range. As we all know, there is a cost of living crisis going on – rising fuel bills, inflation yadda yadda yadda – and during hard times, luxury items are usually the first to go by the wayside. Sadly, for most folk vinyl is a luxury in 2024.
It’s the same reason many festivals are struggling. Costs are rising across the board, prices have to go up and punters are - quite rightly - becoming more selective on what they spend their hard-earned cash on.
The big question is whether this is merely a market correction or something to be more concerned about? In the case of vinyl there are undoubtedly supply side problems that partially account for its high price.
There is just one major pressing plant in the UK – The Vinyl Factory. This lack of capacity means many records have to be manufactured outside the UK, which again pushes up the price (yay Brexit!) When you factor in the increased cost of raw materials and production bottlenecks due to Covid, it’s not surprising the cover price of records has risen in the way it has.
But if a vinyl-loving entrepreneur (or two) spotted a gap in the market and opened a new UK pressing plant, would this bring down the price? Just a thought…
To return to the Billboard survey, the one silver lining can be glimpsed in streaming sales. The last year saw a 7% increase in the use of on-demand streaming services, which suggests that punters haven’t fallen out of love with music itself but are merely tightening their purse strings.
