This Joe Petro Post on "The Rise of Vinyl" is Very Good

  I would post more to other blogs and provide links if I read more posts that were actually interesting for something other then the subject of the post itself, "NEW RADIOHEAD SONG ONLINE" in music for example.  When it comes to writing about the current market for music, writing tends to skewer in favor of hand wringing or prophecies about market conditions that don't actually exist, "In the future..."

   But this Joe Petro post on "The Rise of Vinyl" on music think tank is a trenchant meditation on the subject, with facts and figures to accompany.  (MUSIC THINK TANK THE RISE OF VINYL)

  What is key to me about the "The Rise of Vinyl" is that it actually has happened, and continues to happen, and doesn't require any "In the future" bullshit.  The facts are straightforward:

               Listeners spent over $100 million dollars on vinyl records in 2011. That is a 30% increase in both revenue from and unit sales of vinyl in 2010. Big numbers, right? Well, sort of, for vinyl at least, but in this $7 billion industry vinyl does not even account for 2% of total sales. Nevertheless, vinyl sales have been on the rise for the last couple of years and I see no reason for that trend to stop. Aside from posting a decline from 2005 to 2006, vinyl sales have only been on the rise. There was a 36.6% gain in the sale of EPs and LPs in 2007, and vinyl sales doubled in 2008, grew 33% in 2009, 26% in 2010, and over 30%  last year.

      Ok, here's the thing.  Maybe 2% of 7 billion dollars doesn't represent a lot to the music business as a whole, but that is 140 million dollars.  This is just vinyl sales- so let's say that the top 100 records represent half that amount, so 70 million dollars.  And let's say the 100th record on that top 100 sells .001 percent of all the records in that top 100 record category.  That's 70,000 and I would submit that is a pretty obtainable number for an indie release- just vinyl sales- mind you.  You could be talking about adding another equivalent amount in digital sales or CD sales. 

      So let's take that 70,000 figure and add 30%- next year that is an additional 23,000 dollars!  That is a great return on investment.