We’ve been living in a vinyl revival for years, with sales of vinyl LPs and the best turntables in rude health. But new data from Billboard suggests this particular listening party could be coming to an end. Between 2023 and 2024, US vinyl sales fell 33.3%. That’s a much bigger drop than sales of CDs (down 19.5%) or digital albums (down 8.3%). And it hasn’t been replaced by streaming, which is up just 7.2%.
The problem is quite simple. Vinyl almost always costs too much now.
New releases routinely cost $30/£30 or higher before shipping, and significantly more if there is more than one disc. And old records are being re-released and priced the same too – assuming they aren’t re-released as an even more expensive package like Green Day’s 8LP. American idiot reissue ($199 / £239.99) or U2’s “Super Deluxe Collector” 8LP reissue of How to dismantle an atomic bomb ($299.98 / £229.99)
New vinyl is expensive partly because there aren’t enough places that make vinyl records, and partly because the cost of making records has risen. But it’s also due to greed in both the new and resale markets.
Advice: the price of vinyl is simply not sustainable
New vinyl has been expensive for a while, and the limited supply is a key factor: there are only so many pressing plants that can make the records. When Adele’s record company got her 2021 album 30 manufactured, it took up so much capacity that other artists faced wait times of up to nine months to have their own records made.
That problem has worsened since pop acts in particular started deliberately creating scarcity with multiple vinyl variants of the same record. Taylor Swift is probably the most notable of these vinyl villains, making multiple versions of the same vinyl in slightly different colors (six colors for Midnights and about a million billion different variants of it The department of tortured poets), but it is now widespread in mainstream music.
High prices and limited retail supply also have a knock-on effect on resale. If you spend any time on the r/vinyl subreddit or similar forums, you will come across Redditors – Redditors who Love vinyl, redditors who have spent more on music than some of us spend on cars or feeding our families – who talk in amazement about the rising prices of old records, the greed of second-hand sellers and why they are cutting back on their purchases as a result of what many consider blatant price gouging. And as some note, high prices do not necessarily mean high quality.
I love vinyl, and in a world where streaming CEOs have a higher net worth than virtually any musician in history, I want to support artists directly by buying their stuff. But like many music fans, I’m buying a lot less now because I simply can’t afford the prices charged.
Music is made to be listened to, not to be hung on the wall or kept in the hope of reselling it for a profit. But like the cost of concert tickets, the cost of vinyl excludes all but the most affluent.