Vinyl Sales Have Plummeted 33% Year Over Year—What’s Going On? After more than a decade of rising sales for the vinyl format, sales have fallen off a cliff this year with an estimated plummet of more than 30% year-over-year. What’s going on? Luminate data reveals a 33.3% drop in vinyl sales for the year 2024 compared to 2023. That’s a drop from 34.9 million units in 2023 to just 23.3 million sold in 2024. Luminate data for other formats reveal this isn’t a vinyl-only problem, either. CD sales have fallen 19.5%, while sales of digital albums have dropped 8.3%. Album sales across all formats have dropped 23.8% year-over-year—dropping from 75.5M sold in 2023 to just 57.5M sold in 2024. …Vinyl fatigue may also be a factor for some consumers. For example, Taylor Swift has released 34 variants of The Tortured Poets Department, each with exclusive tracks, album art, or acoustic versions of songs. The intent there is to get superfans to collect all of these vinyl releases to complete their collection—but fans may be getting burned out on re-purchasing a vinyl album at $50 a pop for a single bonus track.
Forest Park, IL | Old School Records survives at the last minute: But streaming services’ threat to music stores remains. For a brief time this fall, a sign reading “lost my lease” was posted outside of Old School Records, a Forest Park staple that has been in business for more than 21 years. Peter Gianakopoulos, the owner, put up the sign when he fell behind on his rent for the months of August and September after a “very tough year” for the store. The store managed to survive, and the sign has since been removed from the facade of Old School Records. But that, Gianakopoulos said, doesn’t change the challenges that record stores are facing locally and indeed across the world. He said that music streaming services is the main culprit. During his more than two decades as a business owner, Gianakopoulos has noticed many ups and downs in the business of selling records. …In spite of this adversity, Gianakopoulos said, record stores have persevered thanks to dedicated customers, a revival of vinyl in popular cultures and, perhaps most notably, the sense of community that the stores offer.
Kansas City, MO | KC staple counterculture shop 7th Heaven set to close after 50 years: After serving the Kansas City community for half a century, record store 7th Heaven has announced that it will be closing its doors by the end of the year. On Sept. 30, store manager Sebastian Gonzales took to 7th Heaven’s Instagram to confirm the end of an era. Customers expressed their grief in the comment section, while also sharing their favorite memories at the shop, and wishing the owner Jan Fichman a happy retirement. “There’s been an intense, outpouring of grief from the community,” Gonzales says. “Everyone I’ve talked to has said that this is the first record store they ever went to, or they bought their first bong here. We hear these fantastic stories, and people are coming in and stocking up.” Fichman opened 7th Heaven in 1974, where it debuted in a former Taco Via at 7653 Troost Ave before relocating to its current location down the street.
Kelowna, BC | A decade living a childhood dream: Vernon record store owner calls it a day: Growing up as a child in the 1960s, Kelvin Forgo’s home was full of music. His mother was a huge Elvis fan and the house echoed with 1950s rock and roll, played on 7-inch records, on what he calls a “kick-ass” tube console stereo. …Fast forward 40 years and Forgo found himself working part-time in a used record in Vernon, playing vinyl and trying to wind down from his full-time job as an armed security van driver. It was only when the shop’s owner decided to pull the plug on the business that Forgo’s brother gave him some advice. “He bought a little… sprint race car. And he says, ‘Let’s go sprint car racing, and you can own a record shop,'” Forgo said. “And I’m like, what? Where did this come from… (but) that is what ended up happening.” While owning a record store had been a fantasy in the back of his mind since childhood, both brothers—now in their 50s—decided to make their boyhood dreams a reality.
Evanston, IL | Animal Records gives Evanston a vinyl shop for regular folks: Greg Allen opened Evanston’s newest record shop in September—just barely. In a flush of optimism, he’d put a sign in the window at 624 Grove Street declaring that Animal Records would open then, but he quickly ran out of time. “It was September 30,” he says. “I’m looking at my watch, and it’s 4:30 in the afternoon. I’m like, ‘Dang, man, we’re not gonna get opened in September.’” A friend of the shop’s only other employee didn’t think Allen should drag the process out, though—after all, they had a remodeled storefront and some records already on display. So Allen put aside his misgivings and threw open the doors to Animal Records for the first time late on a Monday. “We’re running a couple weeks behind, but we got opened, which is the important thing,” Allen says. “All the customers who come in, I say, ‘Hey, listen, please be patient with us, ’cause it’s a work in progress.’ We don’t have anything alphabetized yet, but everything that’s on the floor is priced.”
Pacific Grove, CA | Pop & Hiss—a Bar-Record Shop-Live Music Venue—Soft Opens: A strange sound—for Pacific Grove, anyway—could be heard coming from a new storefront last Friday night. It was the sound of a touring artist playing live music in an actual club. (Yes, you read that right.) Amsterdam-based Jana Mila was there unspooling her own type of soothing and soulful pop Americana. It was also the sound of history: Pagrovia hasn’t had a dedicated music venue in as long as I can remember, let alone one with this kind youthful verve, and it comes not long after the last dry town in the state added a nano brewery. It was also a sound that can be best described as Pop & Hiss, the fitting name for the vinyl record shop-performance venue-bar that soft-opened this month, and a nod to the sound records make when the needle brings them to life. …“I still remember my tiny Fisher Price toy record player, and my dad’s a musician, so I grew up backstage, and collecting records,” she says. “I love records, I love bars, I love music. Why not put them all together?”
Vinyl power! 70s and 80s music memorabilia—from Prince to The Damned—in demand: You may not have a Ming vase in the attic or antique jewels under the bed but if you grew up before digital domination you probably have vinyl records gathering dust. Not only that, perhaps you have some old flyers, tickets or posters from a concert you went to in the 1970s, 80s or 90s. If the answer is yes to any or all of these questions I have good news for you—you may own valuable collectibles. Vintage vinyl and memorabilia relating to pop, rock and punk artists from the 1970s, 80s and 90s are chart-toppers at auction. Forgive my turn of phrase. I remember when TV’s Top of the Pops was unmissable. Vinyl is so in vogue it’s mind-blowing but in a good way. Record players are popular again and people the world over are keen to enhance their record collections. Musical trends have come full circle as people hanker for something tangible in a soulless digital age.
Tucson, AZ | 19th annual record show draws enthusiasts and collectors for a weekend of vinyl discovery: Cassidy Collectibles’ annual Tucson Record show is back with more vendors and more records. For years, Bruce Smith has been collecting vinyl, watching records stack up in his home. Nearly two decades ago, he decided to start selling them to the community and the Tucson Record Show was born. Tucson vinyl enthusiasts, get ready to expand your record collections when Smith’s Cassidy Collectibles hosts the 19th annual Tucson Record Show from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 26. The record show is a “great place to expand your collection, find your favorite albums or discover something new,” said Smith. This year’s show features over 25 vendors from across the Southwest selling records, CDs and music memorabilia of all genres at the Fraternal Order of Police Hall, 3445 N. Dodge Blvd. “This event is kind of riding the wave of the return of vinyl…”
Don Henley’s ‘I Can’t Stand Still’ And ‘Cass County’ To Be Reissued On Vinyl, CD. Rhino has announced that it will be reissuing two of Don Henley’s solo albums this fall. Henley first solo album, I Can’t Stand Still (1982), and his most recent album, Cass County (2015), will be released on November 22. Pre-orders are available now at donhenley.com and Rhino.com. I Can’t Stand Still has been remastered from the original analog tapes and will be available on CD, 180-gram vinyl LP, and digitally. Cass County will be available as a deluxe, 16-track version on CD and as a double 180-gram vinyl set. With the Eagles on hiatus, its co-founder and influential solo artist Henley released his first solo album in 1982, the gold-certified I Can’t Stand Still. The record included the smash hit “Dirty Laundry,” a sharp critique of the media that launched his solo career and established his voice as a singer-songwriter.
