2014 has been a bumper year for vinyl. Record sales have topped the one million mark in the UK for the first time since 1996, continuing the year-on-year growth we’ve seen recently. This is the peak (so far) of the ‘vinyl revival’, a term that has been in use since the mid 2000s. That means that, in the UK, the business is now worth £20m per year, that’s six times more than it was just half a decade ago.

Of course, vinyl still remains a tiny part of the overall market. CDs sell orders of magnitude more units and digital continues to grow, both as downloadable files, but also with streaming services.

Nevertheless, the growth of vinyl is impressive for a format that was declared dead two decades ago. But is this growth sustainable? Can we really expect year on year growth to continue? If you’re reading this blog then you probably love the format and will continue to use it for the foreseeable future. What we don’t know is whether those who have joined in the fun in the last few years will stick with it, are they just in while vinyl is flavour of the month or are they going to be long term enthusiasts? Will it just be the rare impressive set-ups like Kevin Moens (of soulwax.info) that you see at the top of this post? Or will more casual vinyl collectors stick with it?



This record year of vinyl sales is coupled with constant expansion of the industry, including Record Store Day expanding to a second Black Friday day this year. This pushed me to take a look at the record industry as a whole and think about where it might be heading. We’ll be looking at wider industry looking at Cardiff as an example to see if it fits in with the overall trends found in the UK and the world.

Vinyl vs Digital Formats

You might have seen the last Analogue Music post, a poll which asked people about the music formats they currently used, what they saw themselves using in the future, and if vinyl can still grow. You can see the results here:

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I was genuinely surprised with how well vinyl did in the responses. Especially with how looking strong as a format that people want to move to in future and a majority thought that vinyl will continue to grow. It seems then that people believe the format has life in it yet and that there is more to come.

So is the growth just coming from older bands/reissues?

There’s no doubt that much of the sales of vinyl come from people buying music from artists they listened to when the format was dominant, it was only fairly recently that the Beatles still sold more vinyl than anyone else. It’s difficult to pin down the exact demographics involved in the ‘vinyl revival’ but there does seem to be a fairly healthy mix. Earlier this year, Pink Floyd’s the Endless River became the fastest selling release since the 90s. While obviously an older band, this is still a new release, not just money going into the used side of the industry. On top of this, the biggest selling LP of 2014 is Arctic Monkey’s AM. So clearly there’s scope for a variety of artists to thrive in the ‘vinyl revival’.

So why a Revival?

Most people who spoke to Analogue Music felt the regrowth of vinyl is a reaction to the throwaway nature of digital formats. Apart from the album art and ritual of playing a record that all vinyl lovers know and love, with digital files the feeling of physically owning a piece of music doesn’t exist. It’s this lack of tangibility that seems to have driven people towards vinyl. Of course, not everyone is going to become some die-hard collector and building a collection as impressive as Kevin Moens’.

In fact smaller collections like this one are more likely to be common among those new to vinyl, while they listen to the majority of their music via vastly cheaper digital methods.

Cardiff

Cardiff certainly does not buck the trent of growth in vinyl. There are plenty of independent stores to find and buy along with a decent selection at the city centre HMV. Whatever your tastes, you’re going to find something you like in Cardiff. Have a look at the Analogy Music Cardiff record store map here to see in closer detail:

Cardiff’s most famous store, Spillers Records was forced to move to a new, smaller site in 2010, due to problems in paying the rent. Luckily a local campaign saved it and the store is now thriving and still sees the majority of its sales from vinyl. Outside of Spillers there are plenty of other stores in Cardiff offering different choices of vinyl cuts. From Catapult Record’s dance/electronic music and DJ equipment to the huge collectable selection of Kelly’s records, the vinyl revival is certainly strong in the city.

To see if this growth was as strong as I imagined I recently went to talk to Steve Collins of D’Vinyl records in Cathays. You can listen to my full interview with Steve here:

As you heard, Steve is very confident about the future of the industry. What he told me seems to reflect on the conclusions I had drawn from the wider vinyl world, younger people are getting into the format. And that’s even happening at D’Vinyl when much of the LPs stocked are quite old.

Steve’s optimism seems to reflect a wider confidence in the industry at the moment and Cardiff is following that trend.