Physical media may or may not be facing its imminent demise, but vinyl managed to have another record year with nearly eight million records sold over the last 12 months — a 49 percent increase over 2013 according to the Wall Street Journal.
Surprisingly, this only accounts for a mere two percent of music sales in the country.
That’s because, while vinyl sales are skyrocketing, the production side of the industry is struggling to keep up. A few more than a dozen factories are still in operation, but they’re running on ancient machinery that simply isn’t manufactured anymore.
This makes maintenance costly and production slow with pressing machines only capable of churning out 125 records per hour. Large orders from record companies that used to take weeks now take months to fill. Furthermore, the livelihood of these few plants depends on one company, Thai Plastic & Chemicals, which supplies about 90 percent of the raw polyvinyl chloride compound needed to make a record, WSJ reports.
Still, not all is lost. Many plants, including the country’s largest, United Record Pressing in Nashville, are adding presses to meet consumer demands. And, while investors are reticent to fund an industry that only accounts for two percent of the market share, vinyl’s upswing in popularity could change this around much like swiss watches, fountain pens and independent bookstores have according to WSJ.
So, which record took the biggest slice of the market share in 2014? That honor goes to Lazaretto, the sophomore album by retro-rock Renaissance man Jack White, which sold 75,700 copies according to Billboard. Other records on the list include the Arctic Monkey’s AM (40,600 copies), The Black Keys’Turn Blue (28,300 copies), Lana Del Rey’s Born to Die (27,200 copies) and Beck’s Morning Phase (25,200 copies).
The whole article is an insightful look into this resurging industry. Read it over at Wall Street Journal, then show your support at any one of these great local record stores.