Vinyl Sales Mojo Rising!

2.9 million vinyl LPs have been sold in the U.S. so far this year, up 33.5 percent from 2012, according to Nielsen SoundScan. In fact, vinyl has been steadily on the rise since bottoming out in 2006, when only 858,000 records were sold. In just seven years, the 65-year-old format has bounced back at an astonishing 338 percent!

This is an amazing statistic when you realize that record stores are closing at an alarming rate, however sales of vinyl continue to improve. What has been counterbalancing record store closures is that you can now find vinyl albums at Urban Outfitters and at Whole Foods (experimenting with vinyl in 5 locations) available as fun, impulse items. That is significant as retail merchandise buyers add record albums to the store shopping experience. This represents validation of the vinyl sales trend leveraging the power of vinyl’s demographics.

Vinyl creatively displayed at Whole Food

Newbury Comics (a 28 store Boston-based chain, where I have gone and will be going again for Record Store Day – Black Friday 2013 11/29) is making a strong play for vinyl sales in their respective retail sites, as well as online. Amazon via its Vinyl Store is also moving vinyl in measure.

Jack White’s Third Man Records continues to make excitement happen for vinyl music enthusiasts. This past week saw Third Man Records, Rolling Record Store, Fall Tour 2013 rolling along. The closest their road trip came to Connecticut was on October 10th when they paid a stop to New York City at Other Music (15 E 4th St New York, NY).

Third Man Records walks the walks and talks the talk when it comes to vinyl, especially specialty vinyl.

I saw this video of Jack White in his Third Man Store (2011) this morning. He is promoting the singing greeting card edition of Wanda Jackson‘s recording that he produced and plays on plus the Third Man Monkey Band music player (only 25 cents).