In the era where CD sales are plummeting faster than Tiger Wood’s reputation, the music industry seems to be reverting to the old school format of vinyl records to at least make up a part of their losses. Although wax sales are only a fraction of one percent of total revenue, it is the fastest growing format (90% growth in 2008, projected 60% growth in 2009) and it’s starting to catch the attention of every record label out there.

Although vinyl tends to be geared towards the “indie” crowd, the top ten selling albums of 2009 in that format are only halfway composed of such titles. Here’s the complete list [via]:

1: The Beatles // Abbey Road – 34,800
2: Michael Jackson // Thriller – 29,800
3: Animal Collective // Merriweather Post Pavilion – 14,000
4: Wilco // Wilco – 13,200
5: Fleet Foxes // Fleet Foxes – 12,700
6: Pearl Jam // Backspacer – 12,500
7: Grizzly Bear // Veckatimest – 11,600
8: Guns N’ Roses // Appetite for Destruction – 11,500
9: Dave Matthews Band // Big Whiskey… – 11,500
10: Radiohead // In Rainbows – 11,400

With all the hubbub surrounding whether or not Animal Collective was going to break into Billboard’s Top 100 albums of the week on vinyl sales alone back in January of ’09, I was surprised to find that they only pushed out 14K copies total. Other surprises is that the overlap between Dave Matthews Band listeners and vinyl lovers is not the expected 0% and Wilco sold only 13K in records even though every time I go to a record shop it seems that I’m surrounded by camels.

Tags: Vinyl, Year End Lists

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 at 4:17 pm and is filed under Musical Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.