Vinyl record sales surpass CDs for first time since 1987

Last year saw more vinyl records than CDs sold for the first time since 1987.

That was back when it was the end of the world as REM knew it, Jennifer Grey’s Baby was breaking out of her corner and having the time of her life and George Michael was urging everyone to have “Faith.”

While physical music comprised only 11% of 2022′s market, which was dominated by streaming services at 84%, vinyl saw its 16th straight year of growth, with 41 million albums sold as opposed to the 33 million CDs that listeners snapped up, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) said in a recent report.

Growing 17% over the previous years with $1.2 billion in sales, vinyl captured about 75% of all physical-music revenue, while CD profits fell 18%, raking in just $483 million. Digital download revenue dropped 20%, to $495 million. Ten years earlier, the category made up 43% of revenues for recorded music, BBC News noted.

“Music lovers clearly can’t get enough of the high-quality sound and tangible connection to artists’ vinyl delivers and labels have squarely met that demand with a steady stream of exclusives, special reissues, and beautifully crafted packages and discs,” Mitch Glazier, chairman and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, wrote in a post on Medium last year.

Music experts attributed the changes in part to younger people gravitating toward vinyl record albums, fueled by the likes of Adele and Taylor Swift, who both released vinyl versions of their work, NPR reported.

The lifting of pandemic restrictions also helped, as customers returned to record stores, the RIAA said.

The medium is here to stay, Glazier wrote, with last year’s “eye-popping growth” showing that it’s “cementing its role as a fixture of the modern music marketplace.”