How long did the vinyl come back?

In 2018, the once forgotten format seems closer to the main trends than ever in the past few decades.

It is outdated. He went out of fashion. It turned into a bubble that was about to explode. Vinyl was repeatedly attributed to historical garbage. And yet he is again with us - and continues to grow.

By the beginning of 2018, the business and culture of vinyl reached an unexpected point. After more than ten years of sales growth in the United States, the return of vinyl is no longer a strange news, a whim of hipsters. Instead, the hectic ecosystem of players and recordings is surprisingly close to the main trends. Last year, vinyl appeared in advertising for insurance companies and arthritis pills . He appeared on the TV show " The Price Is Right ". In November, Jack White talked about such previously unthinkable intersections during the first vinyl producer conference in this millennium. At the same time, vinyl is responsible for an infinitely small share of the $ 16 billion revenue of the world record industry. And even in the ever-declining world of physical media, only one of the 10 new albums sold last year came out on vinyl (according to one of the industry reports) - and besides the negligible share of audio cassettes, the rest of this group belonged to CD.

However, the numbers - and the observations of industry insiders - suggest that the physical records will continue to be a meaningful and constant part of the lives of many music lovers. In the future, vinyl is likely to maintain its status as a supplement to impersonal streaming, a sloppy anachronism, constantly hanging around somewhere in the backyard. In the meantime, here are the main trends from the world of records.
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Sales of vinyl are growing - but not everything is so simple

In 2017, sales of vinyl in the United States increased again - this growth has been observed for 12 years in a row, according to Nielsen Music . There are a lot of controversies about the meaning of this fact: in an era of excess data, when a streaming analyst is able to make out the popularity of a song by the smallest detail, the vinyl metrics remain rather vague. Who will be able to calculate what we will buy in the semi-dark basement? In addition, recently appeared one-person labels usually do not report their sales to analysts. Even Jack White's Third Man Records does not report much of his sales, according to its co-founder, Ben Bdekwell. Mike Sniper, owner of Captured Tracks, put in vinyl in mid-2000, at the very beginning of the return of vinyl, remembers how the recordings of independent groups were sold very quickly even before this was reflected in the numbers. So, like the vinyl records themselves, the official numbers are full of imperfections.

According to Nielsen, sales of vinyl LPs last year grew by 9% to a record number of 14.3 million albums. The growth rate has fallen compared to the double figures of previous years, and some have therefore started talking about ending the vinyl boom. But a newer tracking service, BuzzAngle Music, recorded a 20% increase in vinyl sales — albeit with a total of only 8.6 million. (These two services have different methodologies ). eBay and the Discogs online vinyl market are showing double-digit sales growth. In Britain, sales of vinyl soared by 27%, and in Canada - by 22%. If the boom ends, so far this is not visible.

The number of factories for the release of vinyl increased

Not so long ago, it seemed that supply problems would hinder the return of vinyl, despite strong demand. In 2015, the delay in the implementation of orders in factories could easily be six months, or even more. For small labels, it was too much time to freeze their money without a product. Back in 2016, Billboard wrote that the press for vinyl "no one else does."

But over the past couple of years, several companies — Newbilt, Viryl Technologies and Pheenix Alpha — have begun to produce new vinyl presses . Newbilt's most illuminated car was when Third Man recently opened a factory in Detroit. Alex DesRoches, head of marketing at Viryl, told Pitchfork magazine that Independent Record Pressing, opened in New Jersey in 2015 by the independent label Secretly Group and the long-standing alternative label Epitaph , has completely switched to new presses that work faster and with fewer errors. In general , more and more records factories are opening . One of the factories in Northern Virginia, which is due to start work this year, promises to add 9 million entries per year to the current annual production of 50 million units in all of the United States.

And although the press is still being loaded to the eyeballs every year before the April Day of the music store , the advantages of having new suppliers are obvious even without taking into account those large labels that can open their own factories . Jesse Frick, who works at home and manages the indie-rock Father / Daughter factory from there, told our magazine that the total time of the production cycle is improving. “This whole story no longer seems such a headache as it once was,” she says.

Along with vinyl, the best-selling records go into the main trends.

Each year, several re-printed versions of classic albums are almost guaranteed to be on the bestseller list among vinyl. As long as there are students, there will always be those among them who will discover the Legend album by Bob Marley or Abbey Road from Beatles. But among these time-tested names every year, the list of best-selling LPs was gradually leaning towards indie rock. But last year this did not happen - along with trends in streaming music , where viral hits were unwound on an international scale.

According to BuzzAngle, the top 25 records of 2017 were released by major labels (with the exception of the album Lumineers with the same name in 2012, released by the independent company Dualtone). The hit list from Nielsen was about the same. And the albums of such well-known independent labels as Arcade Fire, LCD Soundsystem, Grizzly Bear and War on Drugs did not get into it. Instead, among the leading albums are Ed Shiran's latest creation and Harry Styles' solo debut.

This is very different from 2015 (when Arctic Monkeys "AM", Sufjan Stevens "Carrie & Lowell" and Alabama Shakes "Sound & Color") are in the top ten, from 2014 (Jack White "Lazaretto" in the first place), 2013 ( Vampire Weekend, Arcade Fire, Bon Iver, the National) or from 2012 (Beach House "Bloom" in 6th place). Perhaps, in the process of involving more and more people in the world of vinyl, it is increasingly starting to resemble pop culture as a whole.

More records are coming out on vinyl

Albums in the styles of pop and R & B, while not affecting the statistics, until recently would not have worried about the release of vinyl versions, but now their number is growing rapidly. In 2013, the Frank Ocean album “channel ORANGE” could only be bought in a pirated version ; the same was true for Beyoncé's “Beyoncé” album. Last year, after the release of the album Blonde on vinyl in 2016, Ocean sold the vinyl version of the visual album Endless. In December, the Lord announced the release on vinyl of his album "Melodrama". The action of Greta Gerwig's acclaimed film “Lady Bird” takes place in 2002, when vinyl sales were simply none; and its soundtrack, of course, can now be bought on vinyl .

Cars re-releasing hits continue spitting out vinyl. If you wanted to put Britney Spears on the turntable "... Baby One More Time" or Predator soundtrack , then 2017 was your year. The Velvet Underground, Johnny Cash and George Harrison released vinyl albums, like many others. Such large and expensive editions usually contain material that has already been sold, so it is not surprising that many are wondering whether the revival of vinyl will continue. According to the latest report on the US record industry, vinyl in 2016 was retailing at an average price of $ 24.98, that is, it grew by more than 20% in ten years, already taking inflation into account. And while today's buyers are loaded with canonical records, ubiquitous hits and new sandtracks, they may not have the money to support new artists.

Legendary record stores are closing, but even more new ones are opening.

For all the simplicity of online shopping, the human interaction that takes place during a live visit to a real record store still remains one of the attractive features of vinyl . Any urban vinyl fan can give you a list of his favorite stores that have closed in recent years. But across the country from 2012 to 2017, almost 400 new stores opened, according to industry officials .

“Almost every week I receive an e-mail from someone saying“ Hello, I open a store in a couple of months, ”says Carrie Colliton, co-founder of the Music Store Day. If vinyl gains even more popularity , and the cost of renting in cities will increase, then existing sellers, who have gained a lot of knowledge about records and customers, will face some pressure. But in general, the landscape is not narrowed so much as to change completely.

Vinyl does not seem to be something unusual, but so far it occupies a tiny niche

Sales of vinyl can grow, but growth began with very low numbers. Compare the 8.6 million albums sold in the United States last year with 74.5 million CDs, 64.9 million downloads and 377 billion streaming auditions, according to BuzzAngle. Only the category of audio cassettes takes up less space, making another incredible leap , raising sales by 136.1% to 99,400 pieces. If the vinyl eventually becomes too expensive or outdated, cheap and convenient cassettes and CDs will live long after iTunes closes. But as a physical medium for obsessed music lovers, these options will not replace the highly respected LP in the near future.