Vinyl revival

The vinyl revival, also known as the vinyl resurgence, is the renewed interest and increased sales of vinyl records, or gramophone records, that has been taking place in the music industry. Beginning in 2007,^[1][2] vinyl records experienced renewed popularity in the West^[3][4][5] and in East Asia^[6][7] amid steadily increasing sales, renewed interest in the record shop, and the implementation of music charts dedicated solely to vinyl.^[8]

The analogue format made of polyvinyl chloride had been the main vehicle for the commercial distribution of pop music from the 1950s until the 1980s when it was largely replaced by the cassette tape and then the compact disc (CD). After the turn of the millennium, CDs were partially replaced by digital downloads^[9] and then streaming services. However in the midst of this vinyl record sales were increasing and was growing at a quick rate by the early 2010s, eventually reaching levels not seen since the late 1980s in some territories. Despite this, records still make up only a marginal percentage (8% in the US as of 2023) of overall music sales.^[10] Alongside these there has also been a swift increase in the sales and manufacturing of new record players/turntables.^[11]

The revival peaked in the 2020s decade, with various publications and record stores crediting Taylor Swift with driving vinyl sales.^{[12][13][14][15]} In 2022, Swift's Midnights became the first major album release to have its vinyl sales outpace CDs since 1987,^[16][17] with approximately 600,000 sold in the US and 80,000 sold in the UK at the time of the record occurring.^[18] In 2023, Swift's re-recorded 1989 (Taylor's Version) became the first album to sell over a million vinyl LPs within a single calendar year in the US.^[19] In 2024, Swift's The Tortured Poets Department broke the record for the single-largest sales week for a vinyl album in the modern era, with 859,000 sales in its first week.^[20] For 2022 the Recording Industry Association of America reported that: "Revenues from vinyl records grew 17% to $1.2 billion – the sixteenth consecutive year of growth – and accounted for 71% of physical format revenues. For the first time since 1987, vinyl albums outsold CDs in units (41 million vs 33 million)."^[21] The revival has been relatively muted in certain other countries like Japan and Germany — the world's second and third largest music markets after the U.S.^[22] — where CDs continue to outsell records by a significant margin as of 2022.^[23][24]