THE FALL & RISE OF THE VINYL ALBUM

The vinyl sector may constitute just a sliver of the pie, but it’s an extremely tasty one. Vinyl album sales in the U.S. have grown a whopping 260% since 2009, when Nielsen presumably first took notice of the phenomenon.

Last year, vinyl unit sales grew by half from 2013, totaling 9.2 million from 6.1 million. Momentum continues to increase: Vinyl album sales between January and March of this year were 53% higher than during the comparable period last year, driven by a 66% increase in catalog sales. But sales of current releases are up 37% in the first three months of this year as well.

The top-selling vinyl album since the beginning of 2010 is The Beatles’ Abbey Road with 172k, but the rest of the Top 5 consists of current releases: Mumford & Sons’ Sigh No More (Glassnote) with 110k, Bon Iver’s For Emma Forever Ago (Jagjaguwar) with 102k, Jack White’s Lazaretto (Third Man/Columbia) with 94k and Arctic Monkeys’ AM (Domino) with 89k.