Vinyl Records making a come back
A music-buying public
enamoured with digital downloads may be abandoning the compact
disc in droves, but one physical medium is staging a tiny
comeback.
Amid otherwise gloomy
music sales numbers released by Nielsen Co. this week, vinyl
record sales doubled compared with the year before.
The number of long-play
vinyl records sold in the United States rose to 1.88 million
units, compared with 990,000 the year before.
While vinyl records
represent just a fraction of total music sales, their resurgence
could not come at a better time for another under-fire segment
of the music industry, the independent record store.
Nielsen said almost
two-thirds of the vinyl albums sold last year were from
independent shops.
Higher sales of vinyl
products buck a trend in the music industry, with major labels
trying to combat shifting consumption patterns on the part of
consumers.
"From what I'm
gathering, strangely enough, it's the younger generation that
are really kind of going back to [vinyl]," said Roy Trakin,
editor of the U.S. music industry Web site Hits. "It's a
nostalgic throwback to listening to music in a traditional
way."
|
