In comparison to recent years, vinyl has made a significant surge, clawing back from what seemed like extinction. With a 52 percent increase in vinyl purchase in 2014, hitting the highest number of sales since 1991, it seemed clear that vinyl was poised to make a comeback as a common means of music consumption. But as Digital Music News has pointed out, this “comeback” isn’t nearly as large when comparing to vinyl sales in the ’70s and ’80s.
According to the graph, data coming from the Recording Industry Association of America, vinyl sales at their peak year in the ’70s moved somewhere around 500 million singles and 350 million LPs. In 2014, 9.2 million vinyl albums were sold, and in the past decade, the increase in vinyl sales has moved from 0.2 percent to 3.5 percent. However, it’s important to keep in mind that music-sale mediums can change vastly in a significantly short amount of time, so vinyl might be in for that comeback a little later down the road.
