Suzanne's Mom's Blog

Do you listen to your old LPs? It took us a while to get a decent record player after the old one wore out, but now we can listen anytime — if we remember we have a vinyl collection. That’s not a given: it’s more automatic to turn on the radio.

And you have to get back in the habit of noticing when one side has finished playing and it’s time to flip the record. We did play the Mormon Tabernacle Choir when the children were in the house at Christmas. But then we forgot to turn off the machine.

I have been reading that some music connoisseurs prefer the sound of vinyl to CDs and the ubiquitous MP3s, and now it seems that other consumers are catching on.

In September Elias Leight reported at Rolling Stone that the revenue generated by record sales was on track to surpass the revenue generated by CDs.

“Sales of vinyl records have enjoyed constant growth in recent years. At the same time, CD sales are in a nosedive. Last year, the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) mid-year report suggested that CD sales were declining three times as fast as vinyl sales were growing. In February, the RIAA reported that vinyl sales accounted for more than a third of the revenue coming from physical releases.

“This trend continues in RIAA’s 2019 mid-year report. … Vinyl revenue grew by 12.8% in the second half of 2018 and 12.9% in the first six months of 2019, while the revenue from CDs barely budged. If these trends hold, records will soon be generating more money than compact discs.

“Despite vinyl’s growth, streaming still dominates the music industry — records accounted for just 4 percent of total revenues in the first half of 2019. In contrast, paid subscriptions to streaming services generated 62 percent of industry revenues.

” ‘We welcome [the growth in vinyl],’ Tom Corson, now the co-chairman and CEO of Warner Records, told Rolling Stone in 2015. ‘[But] it’s a small percentage of our business. It’s not going to make or break our year. We devote the right amount of resources to it, but it’s not something where we have a department for it.’

“Still, the vinyl resurgence has been a boon for some artists, especially classic rock groups. The Beatles sold over 300,000 records in 2018, while Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, and Queen all sold over 100,000.”

More at Rolling Stone, here.

Of course, reissues of classic records on vinyl are one thing, but original vinyl is quite another. The website Work+Money says that 28 particular classics are worth a combined total of nearly $2 million today.

According to reporter Eli Ellison, they include “The Beatles, ‘The Beatles’ (aka ‘White Album’) … Elvis Presley, ‘My Happiness’/’That’s When Your Heartache Begins’ … Sex Pistols, ‘God Save the Queen’/’No Feeling’ … Bob Dylan, ‘The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan’ … and The Velvet Underground, ‘The Velvet Underground & Nico.’ ” More about that here.

Wonder what our collection is worth.