A Lot of LP Records Were Made in 2013. A LOT.
According to Analog Planet, 30,799,783 vinyl records were manufactured in 2013. Broken down, that means:
- 40,541 LP titles
- 17,796 7-inch single titles
But the actual number is probably much higher. Analog Planet says that two pressing plants decline to provide them with numbers, so about 4 million records are not included in that count. The survey also doesn’t include units manufactured in South America and South Korea. That means the world saw somewhere around 35 million new pieces of vinyl in 2013.
Going deeper, they believe that despite what Nielsen Soundscan says about vinyl sales in America last year (they contend about 3 million units were sold), the actual number is probably well beyond 6 million. This is due to the fact that plenty of vinyl is sold by stores not hooked up to the Soundscan system.
Keep in mind that this is just the sale of new vinyl. This total doesn’t include the brisk market in the sales of used and collectible vinyl.
While 35 million sounds like a lot, it’s still a small fraction of the total number of recorded music sales. Still, though, it’s pretty impressive for a format that was declared dead a decade ago. Read more about 2013 vinyl sales here.
I got a new LP recently. It was actually worse quality than what Island records was putting out in the eighties. It was extremely warped and full of artefacts left over from either the recording or mastering process. Unless the LP industry can start producing records of the quality that existed in the sixties and seventies and make that quality an industry standard (because God knows they CHARGE enough for them now), I will never buy vinyl again.