The Best-Selling Vinyl Record of 2017 Was Released 50 Years Ago

Vinyl records just gained another 3.1 percent. Thanks in part to a little band from the 60s.

Last year, sales in the US grew 25.9% to 7.2 million units. In the UK, sales rose 53% to 3.2 million units, the same volume last reached in 1991.

With turntables and other accessories, sales will likely reach the $1 billion mark. It’s a business that won’t stop roaring back.

After nearly 25 years out of operation, Jamaica’s oldest pressing plant has returned to action. Warner has also launched a vinyl-only label. In addition, Sony will once again manufacture records in Tokyo after 30 years.

Speaking about the appeal of the format, a 28 year old consumer told the NPR,

“The way I consumed music has been so instant and so immediate, especially with Spotify and online streaming services. I kind of just want to go back to the way I used to listen to it as a kid.”

Still think vinyl records are dead?

Vinyl records just scored an all-time sales record.

Yesterday, Nielsen Music released its Q3 music industry insights for the nine month period ending September 28th, 2017.

The metrics company found that weekly on-demand audio streaming has surpassed 8.3 billion. Nielsen Music also registered 287 billion audio streams so far, a 59.4% increase over the same period last year. Combined with video, on-demand streams have surpassed 442 billion streams, up 40.4% from last year.

Meanwhile, song ownership has once again experienced a significant decrease. Physical album sales were down 18.3%. Showing that consumers have increasingly switched to streaming, digital album and track sales decreased 19.5% and 23.1%, respectively.

And while streaming explodes, so does vinyl records.

Nielsen Music noted that vinyl records have risen 3.1% to 9.35 million units in 2017. During the same period last year, the company reported 9.07 million vinyl records sold.

Underscoring vinyl records’ strength in the music industry, the format now represents nearly 14% of all physical album sales in the US, an all-time high.

And the best-selling album this year?

That would be The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band became the top selling vinyl album. The album has already moved 40,000 units so far this year — and was released 50 years ago.

Image by Elisa Lataster (CC by 2.0)