Why Vinyl is NOT Going to Save the Record Industry
With the release of mid-year sales numbers in the US showing that vinyl sales are up more than 40% over this time last year. a lot of people have the mistaken impression that vinyl is riding to the rescue of the record industry.
Let’s be clear. It’s not. Vinyl only makes up a tiny, tiny fraction of music sales. Despite their continued slide CDs are still way, way ahead. And while digital sales ain’t what they used to be, either, they’re still much better than vinyl.
Pando Daily takes a look.
Limited edition vinyls and box sets with fancy, innovative packaging have always been a good way for artists to skim a little more cash from their super-fans — the Velvet Underground box set with the phallic, peel-able banana was always one of my favorites. But when the Smithsonian writes (with certainly a heaping dose of irony) “Forget the Cloud. In the Future We’ll Listen to Music on UV-Cured 3D-Printed Resin,” don’t be fooled. Music as a physical item will be for collectors and hobbyists, just like Maker Faire’s army of homemade R2D2s. In the future, music will still be largely in the cloud — or whatever they call the telekinetic brain-to-brain medium we use to share songs in 2030.
Read the whole article here.
