Billboard reported last week on the year-end record sales numbers, and vinyl is once again is showing an upswing. Pretty much every other aspect of the report was showing minus signs, all except vinyl sales. While the numbers aren't as big as they were in previous years, sales still rose 14% from 2009 to 2010, this all according to the Nielsen Company and Billboard's 2010 Music Industry Report. In 2009, 2.5 million vinyl albums were sold; in 2010, that number rose to 2.8 million and cracked the Nielsen SoundScan sales record.
We previously reported on the top-selling vinyl artists of 2010 which was a fair split between new indie artists and established artists like Pink Floyd and The Beatles. Peeling back the numbers on the top three selling vinyl albums, we can see that the numbers are not record breaking, but are solid considering todays standards in record sales. The top selling record Abbey Road sold 35,000 units, Arcade Fire's Suburbs sold 18,800 units, and Black Keys' Brothers sold 18,400 units. The top three selling vinyl artists were the Beatles (36,700 units), Black Keys (36,000 units), and Radiohead (30,500 units).
Vinyl sales are still niche though, the fact of the matter is vinyl only accounts for about 4% of total sales for both Arcade Fire and Black Keys. Nonetheless, the numbers are up, which gives us hope to refute the case that vinyl is slowing down.
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