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Official vinyl SoundScan total for 2012


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From Billboard:

 

 

For the fifth consecutive year, more vinyl albums were sold than in any other year since SoundScan launched in 1991. In 2012, 4.55 million vinyl LPs were sold -- up 18% compared to 2011's then-record haul of 3.87 million. 67% of all vinyl albums sold in 2012 were purchased at an independent music store (the same share as in 2011). 76% of the vinyl LPs sold in 2012 were a rock album.

 

The year's top selling LP was Jack White's "Blunderbuss" with 34,000 vinyl sets sold. In second place was the Beatles' "Abbey Road" with 30,000. While overall LP sales were up, the top seller of 2012 sold less than the top seller of 2011. Last year, the biggest vinyl album was "Abbey Road" with 41,000.

 

http://www.billboard.com/news/adele-s-21-2012-s-best-selling-album-gotye-1008067382.story

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I wonder how long YOY increases are going to last? I would say most average people still don't even know new stuff is pressed.

True that. Every day that I tell someone that I collect vinyl, 99% of the replies are "Do you have any Beatles?". When I tell them that  the bulk of my collection is stuff that is pressed today and in recent years, they don't even know what to say and I get  the whole "They still press vinyl?" question.

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True that. Every day that I tell someone that I collect vinyl, 99% of the replies are "Do you have any Beatles?". When I tell them that  the bulk of my collection is stuff that is pressed today and in recent years, they don't even know what to say and I get  the whole "They still press vinyl?" question.

 

My mom refused to buy records for me for Christmas a few years ago because she didn't want to pay for "dusty old records". I took her to the record store a few months later and she was amazed that they still make them. She hasn't had a problem giving me records as gifts since.

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Every time I go to the post office with records to mail I get into a conversation about how they still make records. Every time they then proceed to tell me about all the Elvis records they have that must be worth a fortune since they are so old.

 

Also the UPS guy asked me last week if I was a DJ. Fun times.

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Honestly, given the amount of mailorder-only labels out there that are VC-related (not to mention the myriad other genres of music VC doesn't really dive that deep into, like metal/EDM/etc.), this number is probably at least a half-million shy of the actual U.S. total.

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Hopefully this means more pressing plants open in 2013. 

 

How is there not some bazillionaire music fanatic willing to invest in manufacturing new state of the art presses? 

 

Seems like a fairly wise investment. 

 

Who knows. When was the last pressing plant opened? Are the majority of these using equipment that was created before 1980, paid off with record pressings of millions, and only updated over the years rather than built from scratch?

 

I dunno, just speculating. It seems plausible.

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Who knows. When was the last pressing plant opened? Are the majority of these using equipment that was created before 1980, paid off with record pressings of millions, and only updated over the years rather than built from scratch?

 

I dunno, just speculating. It seems plausible.

 

That's the case as far as I am aware. No new equipment is being manufactured and in fact competing plants are buying any available equipment and in one example that I am aware of they are keeping them dormant just to avoid competition.

 

While I'm entirely generalizing and have no clue what an undertaking this would be, you'd think that the demand is there and that some existing plants would welcome an upgrade to their ancient machinery anyway. 

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