Notes:
- Vinyl is the star here; I highlighted it on the graph. They came back from the dead!
- I put the spotlight on vinyl, but you can see how the mountain of CD sales that peaked in 2000 is many times bigger the other physical format peaks.
- All values are nominal USD. If you adjust for inflation, the 1978 vinyl peak becomes bigger. So the vinyl comeback is a true phenomenon, but modest in real terms.
- Vinyl here is RIAA's "LP/EP" category, which bundles 12-inch LPs and 7-inch EPs. The latter is negligible by the 1990s.
- "Vinyl overtakes CD" refers to full-year revenue. The last time vinyl exceeded CD revenue annually was 1986.
by affordablebiscuit
20 Comments
Source: RIAA US Recorded Music Revenue Database (https://www.riaa.com/u-s-sales-database/). Three exports: LP/EP, CD, and Cassette album shipments (singles excluded).
Tools: Python, pandas, matplotlib, seaborn, Claude Code for ideation and debugging.
Does this account for inflation?
Really neat. I wonder if Cassettes and CDs will see a revival soon as younger generations find them as retro.
I’m honestly surprised CDs lasted that long. I genuinely haven’t held a music CD since the mid-00s when I got my first 64mb MP3 player and I could put multiple albums on that thing without needing to switch something out. (consumed AA at a Gameboy-esque pace, though)
i can’t make out the minidisc peak, but it’s probably in there 😀
Wax cylinder recordings are very analog.
units sold would be interesting to see – cassettes were way cheaper than cds and by the mid 2000s cds were getting more expensive. and vinyls these days are way more expensive than they were at their initial peak
Normalise for world population.
I wonder if that revenue from CDs was due to the fact that they seemed overly expensive. $15 in the 90s always seemed excessive to me. My parents would talk about going to the record store with their allowance every week and buying a couple records but they gave me $5/week for allowance. I could only afford to buy one CD a month.
I own cassetes because it feels like practical merch to support the artists.
Plus with the way streaming is, I can imagine a lot of more niche albums just being taken down in the future. I want to have my own copies
I’m waiting on the 8-track revival. *Ca-chunk!*
Corrected for inflation the peaks would be:
* Vinyl: 7.6B
* Cassette: 4.8B
* CD: 14.4B
So the CD peak is still twice the vinyl peak, but the gap isn’t that big. And the total market for physical media is only 10% of what it was in the 1990s.
where are intenet related revenues? I just bought 3 albums from Bandcamp and subscribe to Spotify. I haven’t done physical media for music for a decade but I still pay for music.
How does streaming/digital purchase factor in here? AKA, are we still spending about the same amount on music now or were we spending that much more in the 90s/00s.
As a GenX who changed every fucking format of every fucking thing three or more fucking times, I’m not fucking going back.
Respectfully.
You *really* need to account for inflation or use sales with this sort of graph.
It’s crazy that tapes were bypassed at the same point they hit their peak. I honestly would have thought their total sales were bigger than cds.
Where tf is digital? Incomplete graph
9/11 changed everything, but mostly the CD industry
In the 70s-80s singles would cost $1-2 and albums $5-6. The same vinyl today is $40+, partly due to inflation and partly because it is now a cool collector’s item. So not really much of a “comeback”, mostly just insane pricing.