Vinyl Records Has Made a Comeback as Sales are Rising

Doylestown, Pennsylvania (29 July 2010) – Vinyl records and cassette tapes have made a comeback in popularity as more music fans prefer these classic formats over CDs and digital downloads.

Official figures also note the rise in vinyl records sales by more than five percent last year. On the other hand, CD sales have dropped by a fifth over the same period, leading to some manufacturers threatening to stop their production.

American sales of vinyl records reached almost three million, a significant increase of a million records despite accounting for less than one percent of music purchases.

A famous music website said it had more than 250,000 vinyl albums in stock to meet this growing demand. Meanwhile, Yahoo reported a 210 percent increase in searches of the phrase “blank cassette tapes” and a 110 percent increase of the phrase “music cassette tapes”. Since the official sales figures don’t include sales from smaller record shops and albums sold at concerts, music experts said that the sales figures could even be higher.

The comeback is believed to have been originated from New York teenagers where music from Florence and the Machine and the Courteeners and re-released Jimi Hendrix and The Red Hot Chili Pepper vinyl albums are popular. Vinyl records sales rose to 223,000 last year.

"Vinyl sounds richer and there's something special about the cover art and sleeve notes which you cannot get with digital tunes," said William Gait, a vinyl record fan.

Over the past 10 years, majority of the vinyl records were sold to DJs and dance music fans, but more rock and country music albums have been sold recently.