US | More Than 2.2 Million Vinyl Albums Sold In One Week In The US: The week of December 22, 2022, vinyl album records hit a sale of 2.2 million making it the largest number of vinyl albums sold in a week. Luminate has been tracking music sales since 1991 and 2022 was the year where numbers went sky high. According to Billboard, ” That marks the single-largest sales week for vinyl albums since Luminate began electronically tracking music sales in 1991. It’s also only the second time in the modern era that weekly vinyl album sales have exceeded 2 million.” The first-time vinyl album sales exceeded was last year, the week ending December 23, 2021. Vinyl album sales were up 2.1 million last year. Inspired by holiday shopping vinyl album sales went up which allowed their number to reach to the millions. According to Billboard, “sales grew 46.7% during the holiday season. Vinyl album sales made up 57% of overall album sales in the United States in the week ending December 22 and 63% of all physical album sales.”
UK | Vinyl outsells CDs in the UK for the first time in 35 years: For the first time in 35 years, vinyl sales have beaten the sales of CDs in the UK. 2022 will be remembered for a lot of things, but the confirmation of vinyl’s resurgence to the top of the listening pile will be one more reminder of the year. The year’s best-selling vinyl was perhaps no surprise for those paying attention but is a sign that records are no longer restricted to the desires of music purists. The advent of streaming platforms has been a double-edged sword for the music industry. It has heralded a widespread proliferation of music as a necessity in our everyday lives; it has allowed an increase in the discovery of new artists and provides us with accessibility that was previously reserved for science-fiction films. However, it hasn’t all been plain sailing.
Valdosta, GA | For the Record: Ashley Street Station opens vinyl shop: For the last two years, memory lane was the only trip many people were taking, and Hole in the Wall Records Shop has flourished into a nostalgic destination. Having run Ashley Street Station, a live music bar, for the past 11 years, owner Bryan Gay said opening an adjacent record store just “made sense.” “We are a music bar. My father, my relatives are all musicians. One of the reasons we did a music bar here was because there weren’t a lot of musical, touring acts coming through and then that bled into the record store. We didn’t really want to do the record store at first,” he said. With the closure of Valdosta staple Red Door Records in late 2017, Gay wanted to keep that community alive. “It was more important for Valdosta to not, not have a record shop, and that was where that conversation came in with Jordan (Ganas) of Red Door saying they weren’t gonna open up. That means the city wasn’t gonna have a record (shop). and that’s where me and my head bartender sat down. We were like, ‘Can we do this?’ That’s where we started building the idea because we didn’t want to go backwards.”
Snohomish, WA | New record shop in Snohomish is homegrown: Stargazer Records in the Historic District had a soft opening earlier this month as the only new and used record store between Lynnwood and Bellingham. But why records when digital download is so accessible? Father and son co-owners Derek and Mark Florian of Snohomish have been in the vinyl record collection scene for many years. It all began when Derek Florian was cleaning his garage and stumbled upon his old records. They gave them a listen, and Derek remembered why he preferred the sound of vinyl over digital. “The sound quality is so much better. Sometimes when artists go into a recording studio, the background instruments and details aren’t heard as well on a digital download. They come out better when played on a record or Hi-Fi,” Derek Florian said. With COVID shutdowns, he noticed an upward trend in the vinyl industry. “During the pandemic, people were stuck at home, and they began to drop the needle again…”
Orlando, FL | Remix Record Shop opens second location in Mills 50 District: A popular record shop along Mills Avenue has opened a second location in the Mills 50 District. Remix Record Shop South celebrated the grand opening of its new location at 1222 Woodward Street, Unit 106, earlier this year. The new shop features multiple listening stations and a place lounge. There are a wide variety of records for sale that span multiple genres, from alternative rock to jazz, R&B, and hip hop, as well as multiple decades from the 60s, 70s, 80s, to the present. Established in 2016, the North shop is located at 1213 N Mills Avenue. The South shop is located just a half mile from the North shop.
Cleveland, OH | Sharing memories before final spin at Record Revolution in Cleveland Heights: One of the country’s oldest independent record stores shuts down at the end of the year: Record Revolution has been a fixture in Cleveland’s music scene for more than five decades, withstanding changes from vinyl to cassettes and CDs to streaming and back to vinyl. Now, there’s just a few days left for its customers to visit the store on Coventry Road. It opened in 1967. The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper” was turning listeners on, and turning the music business on its ear. For almost a century, records had been sold mostly through appliance stores, drugstores and musical instrument shops. But as Baby Boomers came of age, independent stores like Cleveland Heights’ Record Revolution offered a new experience, with clerks who lived and breathed the latest music. For 15 years, one of them was Rob Love. “We were career music enthusiasts, you know what I mean?”
Lowell, MA | A Lowell record store took on the fight against cancer. Then it was robbed. “It’s very strange, but what’s come of it is amazing.” Dave Perry didn’t plan on any of it. The former Lowell Sun veteran reporter never planned on co-owning a record store in the Mill City, but alas, he has one now. Vinyl Destination, which he owns with his son, Dan, opened in 2013. Nor did his family plan on the heartbreak of losing Perry’s daughter-in-law — the wife of his other son, Ben — to a specific kind of cancer in the digestive system, better known as GIST, in 2020. Nor how, now, every December, the vinyl shop transforms into “Cupcake Records” to raise money to help support patients going through the same as she did. Nor how, early last Friday morning, amid the month of charity, someone waltzed into the shop and lifted from its cash box. And certainly not what happened next. “I swear to God, this is the weirdest thing, but that break-in was one of the best things that ever happened to my spirit in terms of being a business owner. It’s very strange, but what’s come of it is amazing.”
New Hartford, NY | New Hartford record shop reaches out to pets in need: Reimagine Records, 4520 Commercial Drive, is supporting Anita’s Stevens Swan Humane Society with fundraising raffle ticket sales, offering the chance to win four different prize baskets featuring items from local businesses, artists, musicians or a $100 gift certificate to their store. Tickets are $10 each or six for $50 and all proceeds will be donated to Anita’s Swan Humane Society on Horatio Street in Utica. Anyone who brings in a pet item like a new toy, blanket or animal food will receive a bonus ticket. Store owners Michelle and Scott Havens chose the shelter as their beneficiary on the suggestion of local musician Erica Zalatan, Michelle said. “Every year we try to do something special for the community,” Michelle said. “Erica suggested this and we thought it was a good idea.” “There are so many organizations that take care of folks but all too often the animals can get overlooked,” Scott added.
Taylor Swift’s ‘Midnights’ is the first album to sell better on vinyl than CD since the 1980s: It’s the highest selling vinyl album of the 21st century. Taylor Swift has broken yet another record with her recent 10th album, ‘Midnights’, becoming the first artist to sell more copies of an album on vinyl than CD since the 1980s. ….The release made Swift the only artist in history to have five albums sell over a million units during its first week on shelves, shifting nearly 1.6 million units right off the bat. That number grew to six million within two months, thus breaking another sales record (the album has broken more than 80 so far). Upon its release, ‘Midnights’ was issued in five colour-coded CD and vinyl editions, with some limited not by how many copies were pressed, but how long they were sold for. The Guardian reported that Swift has thus far sold 80,000 copies of ‘Midnights’ on vinyl, but this is likely a typo – the real number being 800,000 – as it was reported in October that she’d sold 575,000 LPs in the album’s first week of release.
