It’s no secret that vinyl has seen a resurgence in popularity over the last few years, and now it seems that every emerging band has a fresh pressing for sale at their shows, while every major record stretching back for decades is being re-released to capitalise on the format’s revival.
Last year saw vinyl sales actually outstrip downloads for the first time ever, as the latter lost popularity in the face of streaming options, and now the figures from last year are in. ARIA’s 2016 stats reveal that vinyl sales in Australia rose 70% over the year before – the sixth consecutive year of increased demand – and are now worth over $15 million to the local music industry. Physical sales in general totaled just shy of $108 million and still make up 30% of the market, so there are still plenty of CDs being picked up across the country.
While vinyl is still doing remarkably well, it’s clearly streaming that’s making the biggest move, as it grew by 90.5% to now provide 38.5% of Australian recorded music revenue. So, the big black discs won’t be replacing Spotify any time soon, but between them they’re forming a pretty formidable combination.
2016 also brought us good news as far as albums in general are concerned, with Aussie acts scoring the top album spot 25 weeks out of the 52, knocking off plenty of big name acts (and countless movie soundtracks) along the way.
Aussie vinyl is doing pretty well overseas, too, with King Gizz recently nabbing the highest-selling vinyl release on the Billboard charts with their latest, Flying Microtonal Banana.
