DESPITE a global vinyl shortage and the ubiquity of streaming, sales of vinyl records last year were the highest seen for 30 years. More than five million vinyl records were sold in 2021.
Hold on a moment, this all sounds a little familiar.
Perhaps. The truth is vinyl sales have been growing for more than a decade now. Last year’s 8 per cent rise in sales marks the 14th consecutive year of growth for the format. Vinyl album sales haven’t been this high since 1990.
There can’t be that many people who don’t have their Beatles albums on vinyl now, surely?
I don’t know about that, but I do know that ABBA’s new album Voyage was the year’s best-selling vinyl album, followed by Adele’s 30. In fact, eight out of 10 sales of the album 30 in December were of physical copies – vinyl, CDs or cassettes – rather than via streaming.
You can still buy cassettes?
You can, and nearly 200,000 were sold last year.
Pity I don’t have a cassette player anymore. What about CDs? Are they "Down the Dumper" yet?
Someone else used to read Smash Hits. No, not at all. Some 14 million CDs were sold last year, so it remains the most popular physical format, though, in truth, it is just a drop in the ocean compared to streaming.
How so?
The public streamed the equivalent of 132m albums in 2021, which makes up for around 83% of sales in the UK over the last 12 months. Total album sales in 2021 amounted to 159m, up 2.5% on the year before.
Who was top of the pops then?
That would be Adele, who sold more albums across all formats than anyone else. Ed Sheeran had the bestselling single with Bad Habits and his album = (pronounced Equals in case you are in any doubt) was runner-up to Adele in album sales. Rapper Dave, Dua Lipa and Elton John were all in the top 10.
This all sounds good for the music industry.
Well, yes. But probably even better for the streaming industry. Remember, an artist needs to get 1,000 online streams to generate the same royalties as he or she would receive for one CD sale.
Ouch. So, who was the bestseller back in 1990 anyway?
That would have been …But Seriously by Phil Collins. Did you buy that one back in the day?
Cheeky. I was raving in 1990.
And Adele would have been a toddler. Just in case you need to be reminded.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel