The Record Press author is not one for statistics, unless they happen to be connected to my beloved vinyl records.

A recent Retail Gazette article revealed: “By the end of November 2014, more than 1 million vinyl records had been sold in the UK for the first time since 1996. Total sales for last year are expected to be about 1.2m records although exact figures have not yet been released. Vinyl sales reached an all-time low in the UK in 2007 at 205,292. In 2009, when sales were 219,449, the industry was worth around £3m – it’s now worth over £20m.”

The article continued: “Since 2012, vinyl sales have rocketed from 388,768 to 780,674 in 2013 to current levels and it’s certainly more than possible that this trend will continue in 2015. Since 2009, volume sales of vinyl have been growing about 40% a year. This surprising growth is not singular to Britain. In the United States, vinyl sales jumped from less than a million in 2005 to 9.2m in 2014. Globally, after falling below £50m in 2004, 2005 and 2006, the market was worth £213m in 2013.”

The Retail Gazette article does however add some cautionary caveats, before we get too carried away with the vinyl record renaissance: “Vinyl is not just retro but expensive. Amazon’s cheapest supplier charges £29.98 for the vinyl of Pink Floyd’s The Endless River, which recorded the highest first week sales of a vinyl LP since 1997 with a huge…6,000. The CD is being sold for £8. That’s quite a premium to pay for the mythical “warmth” of sound you get from the analogue grooves of a vinyl which in theory you do not from a digital rendering, besides the vinyl record’s status as a kind of art object.”

Artist Neil Young has also joined the debate, describing the vinyl resurgence as nothing more than a “fashion statement”. He explains: “A lot of people that buy vinyl today don’t realize that they’re listening to CD masters on vinyl, and that’s because the record companies have figured out that people want vinyl,” said Young on Southern California Public Radio. “And they’re only making CD masters in digital, so all the new products that come out on vinyl are actually CDs on vinyl.”

It seems that much of the record sales are bolstered by middle aged men reliving their distant youth……..Retail Gazette points out: “While there is certainly a segment of hipster purchases in the increase in sales of vinyl, it is classic rock and its ilk – a genre both stereotypically and factually patronised by middle-aged men – that dominated the vinyl charts in 2014. In fact, of the 10 top-selling records in the first 39 weeks of 2014, seven were reissues. The fifth, seventh and ninth were Led Zeppelin’s first three LPs: it’s hardly difficult to pick out an element of nostalgia in this.”

The experience of MyFirstRecord.co.uk is that this drive for nostalgia through the purchase of vinyl is right across the board in terms of age and music genre. As owner of MyFirstRecord.co.uk I can confirm that this trend for increasing national vinyl record sales was also mirrored by MyFirstRecord.co.uk sales in 2014, which trebled on our 2013 sales figures. Long Live Vinyl……..

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