UK vinyl sales set to hit 30-year high
Fast approaching 100 million, the most since 1990, sales of wax are up ten percent this year, largely due to the dearth of live gigs caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The highest-selling album is (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? by Oasis, with Kylie Minogue’s new LP, Disco, at number eight.
It’s not just vinyl. Cassettes are also flying off the shelves, up 85 percent in 2020. For the first time in years, sales are on course to top one million.
“We have seen 250 percent growth from the bottom of lockdown to where we are now,” Drew Hill, managing director of the UK’s biggest independent distributor of vinyl and CDs, Proper Music, told the Guardian. “I thought it could be catastrophic for the industry but during lockdown the kind of people buying records also probably went to a lot of gigs.”
One format hasn’t fared so well. If CD sales continue on their current trajectory, 2020 will be their worst year since 1987.
