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In Reply to: RE: Vinyl Outselling Digital in UK posted by Amphissa on December 06, 2016 at 19:26:21
I'm afraid that the figures really don't tell one all that much.
Firstly an increase of 100% may or may not indicate a healthy future as it is an increase of 100% on a relatively small starting figure. Secondly it is a small and rather skewed sample ( it seems one week only running up to Christmas). Note also that the comparison is made on value and not units which is another factor that can mislead ( as LPs generally cost more than downloads - if the miniscule UK and UK sourced market for hi-rez downloads is ignored. Furthermore price increases then show as growth year on year whereas they do not represent any actual additional sales )
Most importantly a comparison is drawn with digital downloads and not all digital media. Looking at other industry figures it is clear that downloading is a declining market due, no doubt, to the substitutional effect of streaming services where growth and percentage of total record industry revenue is very large.
If you are correct that 48% of purchasers have not played their LPs and & 7% have no turntable then a significant proportion of these sales can only be put down to effectively meeting a fashion or style demand which will inevitably fall away in due course.
Follow Ups:
I have no doubt that the numbers are just thrown out there to get attention. However, regarding your last comment, as I said, a lot of them may have been bought as gifts (especially when the purchaser has no TT). And I have LPs I've not yet gotten around to playing. I'm not really sure what a "style" or "fashion" purchase of an LP would be.
"Life without music is a mistake" (Nietzsche)
" I'm not really sure what a "style" or "fashion" purchase of an LP would be."
I apologise for not being more clear. A "style" or "fashion" purchase is one made where the function or utility of the object is less important than in demonstrating the status of the owner to the world in general or to a peer group. A good example of this these days is the world of mechanical wrist watches whose function can be bettered by quartz watches at a fraction of the cost.
In LP purchasing terms, style purchases relate mainly to teenagers who buy the discs without any means of playing them but who ensure that they are displayed in a such a way as to impress their peers with their owner's grasp of what is currently hip.
Back in the day teenagers (at least here in the UK) were known to wander the streets carrying LPs as a means of showing their hipness and as a visible token of their membership of a teen sub-group. A classic example of this is the well documented meeting of Mick and Keef on Dartford station in the first years of the 1960s. Of course they could and did play the records too.
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