Sales of physical music are on track to see their first increase in two decades, following years of being overshadowed by streaming.
READ MORE: Taylor Swift and Record Store Day see highest weekly vinyl sales in 30 years
The renewed interest in physical music collections has reached new heights, with the Official Charts Company and BPI reporting that physical album sales have experienced a 3.2% increase in the first six months of 2024, with 8,044,760 units sold. This marks the first time the sector has seen an increase since 2004 when a shift to digital music consumption and streaming began.
Taylor Swift‘s ‘The Tortured Poets Department‘ has been the biggest contributor to the increase in sales, shifting 254,241 copies in the first six months of 2024. Other records in the Top 5 for most physical sales were Billie Eilish‘s ‘Hit Me Hard and Soft‘, which sold 45,434 copies, The Last Dinner Party‘s debut album ‘Prelude To Ecstasy‘ (42,352 copies) and the self-titled album from Liam Gallagher and John Squire (46,982 copies). Rod Stewart and Jools Holland came second to Swift, selling 48,540 copies of their collaborative album ‘Swing Fever’.
The news follows an upward trajectory for vinyl sales this year. In April, vinyl sales enjoyed their highest weekly total sales in three decades, thanks to Record Store Day and the release of ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ in the same week. Data from the Official Charts Company showed that the two events resulted in 269,134 vinyl albums and 37,656 vinyl singles sales – making for a total of 306,791 units.
However, with many artists now releasing new variants of their physical albums, the greater environmental impact has been called into question. Earlier this year, Billie Eilish criticised artists who release multiple vinyl formats to boost sales, calling the practice “wasteful”.
“We live in this day and age where, for some reason, it’s very important to some artists to make all sorts of different vinyl and packaging,” Eilish said, “which ups the sales and ups the numbers and gets them more money.”
“It is right in front of our faces and people are just getting away with it left and right,” she added, “and I find it really frustrating as somebody who really goes out of my way to be sustainable and do the best that I can and try to involve everybody in my team in being sustainable — and then it’s some of the biggest artists in the world making f–king 40 different vinyl packages that have a different unique thing just to get you to keep buying more.”
It’s now become a common occurrence in the industry. Swift’s 2022 LP ‘Midnights’ was sold in five different variants, eventually becoming the first album to sell better on vinyl than on CD since the 1980s.
News of the increased popularity of physical music also follows news that the number of independent record shops in the UK hit a 10-year high, and that sales of vinyl records in the UK had hit their highest level since 1990.
According to the BPI’s analysis, the “ever-rising demand for vinyl albums and other music releases on physical format” reflects a “thriving market for music on the high street”. It also cited the popularity of independent record stores and the success of shops like HMV, which reopened its flagship store on London’s Oxford Street last year. The movement has also seen iconic UK music store Our Price relaunch, 20 years after it was forced to close its doors.
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