It’s the Billboard which announces in its new summary: while sales of vinyl albums continue to increase each year in the United States, only half of the amateurs who buy records actually own a turntable, according to a study commissioned by Luminate.
Last September, the company released this statistic as part of its US Music 360 2022 – Wave 2 report. asked about the devices they owned, and only 50% said they had a “record player”. The total number of respondents for the Music 360 study was 3992.
On the other hand, we learn that in 2022, for the second year in a row – and only the second time since Luminate began tracking music sales in 1991 – vinyl albums have overtaken CD albums in the United States. United. Vinyl continues to be the top format for album purchases for the second year in a row, according to numbers announced in Luminate’s 2022 US Music Year-End Report.
Vinyl was the dominant format for album purchases in the United States until the early 1980s. Then cassettes took hold until the early 1990s when the CD format took off and remained. king until 2021.
Finally, let us preach for our chapel: among the main musical styles measured by Luminate, the rock accounted for 51.83% of all vinyl albums sold in 2022 (22.52 million out of 43.46 million). That’s essentially the same volume as in 2021, when rock made up 51.78% of all vinyl albums sold (21.60 million out of 41.72 million). The second most important musical genre for vinyl album sales in 2022 – and 2021 – was R&B/hip-hop, which accounted for 17.59% of the market last year (7.65 million out of 43.46 million). In 2021, R&B/hip-hop represented 17.38% (7.25 million out of 41.72 million). R&B/hip-hop is an “umbrella” genre that brings together most R&B and/or rap albums.