When the CBS Records factory in Carrollton , Georgia , spread its doors in 1981 , it was the largestrecord - pressingplant in the world . It employed 1,400 workers on round - the - clock shifts to satisfy consumer need for vinyl record . By 1990 , CBS Records had send its billionth record . And by 1991 , it closed forever .
With the advent of the CD in the recent 1980s , both vinyl radical record and tape cassette sales plummet . Vinyl was bar to an analog avocation for old - timers and record - store nerds . The hereafter was digital . By the early 2000s , the CD became the novel endangered species , about kill off by the rise of the MP3 and peer - to - equal file - sharing networks like Napster .
It was then that we started reading the first obituaries for the album . File - sharing made it gentle to download your preferred case-by-case tracks , upload them to your iPod , hit shuffling and enjoy . But gone was the construct of the record album - hearing experience , sit back and appreciating a melodic employment of graphics from beginning to end .
As we displace into the epoch of effectual digital downloads from services like iTunes and Google Play , things did n’t search much better for the album . Singles dominated the download chart and some artist begin ditching the traditional record album format all by simply " dropping " new tracks online one by one .
But two fascinating consumer vogue have emerged over the past couple of geezerhood that may machinate to save the beleaguered record album . First is the dramatic rise in popularity of subscription euphony stream services like Spotify and Apple Music . And the second is the unexpected return of vinyl group .
The Resurgence of Vinyl
Ryan Lewis runsKindercore Vinylin Athens , Georgia , the only record - press plant in the very same commonwealth where CBS Records once rule the industry . Lewis ’s operation is diminutive compare to CBS Records , but the brand - raw record factory and its state - of - the - art machinery is a mark of just how popular vinyl has become . The Kindercore Vinyl plant in Athens can bid 3,000 records a day using newfangled Warm Tone press machine fromViryl Technologies , the first fully computerized and automatic phonograph recording - manufacturing equipment .
In 2016 , vinyl salestopped $ 435 millionin the U.S. and grabbed nigh 6 per centum of full euphony sale , the highest market share for book since 1988 . While the vinyl radical comeback may have originally been fuel by urban hipsters , Lewis says that it ’s absolutely gone mainstream , with vinyl disk and turntables for sales event at big box store and vinyl reference exhibit up in idiot box commercials and movies .
Lewis credit ’s vinyl ’s revival to the attractive physicality of records and a collective desire for a more personal connection with music . A few Christmas Day ago , he noticed a raft of his friends buying vinyl records as gifts for their adolescent and twenty - something nieces and nephew . They wanted to share album that meant something to them , and an iTunes natural endowment wag just did n’t rationalize it . Lewis ’s friend were n’t alone . vinyl group gross revenue have been grow by10 percent each yearand 2017 vinyl sales are alreadyup 2 percentover the same full stop in 2016 .
But vinyl ’s numbers are a dip in the bucket compared to the explosive growth of stream music . In 2016 , on - demand medicine streaming from services like Spotify and Apple Music overwhelm digital medicine sales as the unmarried most popular agency to listen to music , capturing38 percentof full audio consumption . And it ’s fetch even big in 2017 , with Nielsen reporting a62.4 pct year - over - class increasein on - demand euphony streaming equate to the same period in 2016 .
At first glance , the increase potency of streaming audio frequency looks like another strike against the traditional record album . After all , Nielsen report that in the first six months of 2017 , record album sale were down nearly 20 percent across all formats , include full digital album , individual digital tracks and forcible album like CDs .
How Streaming and Vinyl Complement Each Other
But there ’s also evidence that at least some teem medicine listeners are attracted to the format incisively because it appropriate the sort of immersive , old - school hearing experience that was missing from the digital download era . Lewis , for case , habituate Apple Music to sample new artists , and because he ’s paying $ 10 a calendar month for unlimited access , he ’s much more likely to take heed to full albums . And if he care what he hears , he ’ll fork over the $ 20 to $ 40 for the vinyl group version .
" That ’s a way that digital and analog coexist really nicely together , " says Lewis . " As we move toward cyclosis , it ’s made it well-to-do to reconnect with medicine as a whole and easy to mind to farsighted - form euphony . It ’s like you ’re buying the key to this enormous phonograph record accumulation . "
If you need proof that streaming can in reality be a honest thing for albums , count at one of the biggest freeing of 2016 , Kendrick Lamar ’s " DAMN . " When the record album dropped in May of last yr , it straight off predominate streaming sound recording , with a record - breaking nine call from the album appearing in the top ten one-armed bandit onBillboard ’s On - Demand Streaming Chart(another " DAMN " track grabbed the 11th spot , too ) .
What that mean is that streaming hearer were n’t just playing the hit one on repetition , but were in reality heed to the whole album . And Lamar ’s streaming streak was n’t a fluke . Earlier in 2016 , both J. Cole and Drake ( twice ) took over the top eight blot on the Billboard pour chart when they released new albums . And Frank Ocean ’s " Blonde " made the bragging splash , grabbing17 of the top 20 spotson Apple Music ’s " top songs " chart a calendar week after it come out .
Yes , hit singles still get the most current overall , but there ’s also a absolved desire to listen to full albums from important artists . Lewis hear a direct connexion between the rebirth of vinyl and at least some of the wild popularity of cyclosis .
" I believe the rebirth of vinyl radical has confirming rebound for the euphony industry . Even for people who are n’t buying vinyl radical or do n’t have turntable , it ’s still positively affect the way people reckon album , music and artists , " says Lewis . " Whether citizenry are bet music on vinyl or pullulate it , there ’s this renewed ethnic sense of an record album as an individual thing . It ’s grow back into our psyche . "
