The vinyl countdown: New sales charts for old-school format

The UK's Official Charts Company has launched the country's first weekly vinyl charts, responding to a resurgence in consumer demand for the old-school format.

Vinyl sales last year hit their highest level in the UK in 20 years, with 1.29m LP records sold. Demand is running so high that some pressing plants are reaching the limits of their capacity.

Martin Talbot, chief executive of the Official Charts Company, said: "With vinyl album sales up by almost 70 per cent already this year, vinyl junkies could well have snapped up 2m units by the end of this year - an extraordinary number, if you consider sales were one-tenth of that just six years ago."

The resurgence in popularity of vinyl has been helped by Record Store Day, an annual event that will happen this weekend, when independent record stores offer discounts and in-store events in an effort to attract consumers.

Phil Barton of Sister Ray Records, a Soho-based vinyl retailer, said the launch of the vinyl charts showed the format "is more relevant now than ever - far from being a curiosity, vinyl is the go-to format for many music fans."

Demand appears to have accelerated this year. The Official Charts Company said that in the first quarter of 2015, vinyl album sales surged 69 per cent versus the same period in 2014, while singles rose 23 per cent.

The best-selling vinyl album so far this year is Chasing Yesterday by Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds. Other top performers include the reissue of Physical Graffitti by Led Zeppelin and AM by the Arctic Monkeys.

<

The tabular content relating to this article is not available to view. Apologies in advance for the inconvenience caused.

Vinyl-lovers say they are attracted to the unique sound of analogue records, the fact that they are physical artefacts, and the accompanying 12-inch artwork and liner notes.

But vinyl still remains a tiny fraction of total sales, representing less than 2 per cent of the UK's recorded music market. The total vinyl album market stood at just £3.3m in 2009 and by 2014 had increased to £25.9m, according to the Entertainment Retailers Association.

Some people in the music industry worry that vinyl's growth will be hindered by a shortage of capacity at vinyl pressing plants, which are using machines dating from the 1970s and 80s. Some pressing plants are reported to have order backlogs stretching up to a year.

Sonic Cathedral and Howling Owl, two independent record labels, last month complained that they would be unable to get some of their new releases into shops in time for Record Store Day because of bottlenecks at vinyl pressing plants.

© The Financial Times Limited 2015. All rights reserved.
FT and Financial Times are trademarks of the Financial Times Ltd.
Not to be redistributed, copied or modified in any way.
Euro2day.gr is solely responsible for providing this translation and the Financial Times Limited does not accept any liability for the accuracy or quality of the translation