Published
Tue, Jan 2, 2024, 10:30
- The market is expanding at its fastest rate this decade, according to the British Phonographic Industry.
Sales of vinyl in the UK rose for the 16th consecutive year in 2023, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) reports.
Although the BPI's final 2023 stats are still TBA, preliminary data shows that 5.9 million vinyl were sold last year, representing an 11.7 percent increase year-on-year—the fastest growth this decade. The market is currently at its highest annual level since 1990.
Such growth is largely due to the popularity of vinyl albums by rock and pop acts like Lana Del Rey, Blur and Taylor Swift. Kylie Minogue's Tension is also among the year's best-selling LPs. The week before Christmas, people bought around 250,000 full-lengths, making it vinyl's highest-grossing week this century.
More than 40 percent of the 100 top vinyl LPs of 2023 were by British artists, including Depeche Mode's Memento Mori. The Barbie soundtrack, which features music by PinkPantheress, Charli XCX and Dua Lipa, was also up there.
All that said, vinyl still only represents a small piece of the overall pie, with streaming counting for 80 percent of recorded music consumption. People also bought nearly 11 million CDs—the format's smallest annual decline in ten years—and 100,000 tapes.
"Led by vinyl, the resurgence of physical product underlines the resilience of the UK music market at a time when streaming consumption continues to hit record levels," said BPI's CEO Dr Jo Twist OBE. "While LP sales have now been on an upward path for the past 16 years, it's encouraging to see a stabilisation in demand for CD, as well as new generations of music fans falling in love with the cassette. It's giving people more choice than ever in how they enjoy their favourite music."
Read the preliminary report.
Photo: Elza Kurbanova