What are vinyl record sales like in the United States? Don’t ask Billboard, which has recently removed vinyl sales numbers off its website after showing a staggering 33.3% year-over-year fall.
That dramatic fall aroused major concerns about the ‘vinyl resurgence’, prompting an investigation by DMN Pro. Unfortunately, the report’s results were hardly upbeat, with Luminate, Billboard, the Vinyl Alliance, and other groups all predicting vastly different numbers of vinyl albums sold in 2024.
After DMN reported the 33.3% fall that appeared on Billboard’s website, angry letters and requests for corrections followed. The Vinyl Alliance demanded an urgent adjustment, while Luminate condemned Billboard’s tallies, which are paradoxically based on Luminate data, as ‘inaccurate’ and ‘unauthorized.’
Strangely, despite Luminate’s demands for revisions on Digital Music News, Billboard did not update its data. A few days after DMN’s initial revelation on the severe fall, Billboard’s ‘Market Watch’ tally of format sales shifted to a 32.6% year-over-year decline with a new disclaimer. The vinyl sales numbers have now been removed totally.
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It’s unclear why Billboard has removed its vinyl sales page, and owner Penske Media Corporation (PMC) has failed to comment.
At the heart of this problem is a substantial change in how Luminate counts vinyl sales. Leading up to 2024, Luminate’s new methodology sparked shouts of outrage from independent record stores and vinyl associations. As a result, independent merchants, led by the Vinyl Record Manufacturing Association (VRMA), formed their own vinyl chart, while Luminate maintained its substantially lower year-over-year data.
Luminate informed DMN that year-over-year comparisons were unfeasible due to methodological modifications implemented at the beginning of 2024. According to Luminate, these are two distinct counting systems, yet the updated methodology clearly resulted in significantly lower statistics.
READ MORE: Last Week, US Vinyl Record Sales Surpassed 2 Million—But How Reliable Is Luminate Data?
But, setting aside year-over-year comparisons, why are the 2024 statistics so much lower? Regarding the sudden adjustment, Billboard posted this disclaimer on their website:
“NOTE: As previously noted, Luminate modified the methodology for its independent retail sales reporting beginning in Week 1 of 2024. While the new modeled methodology more accurately represents the independent retail market, there is no comparable historical data available to provide an accurate year-over-year trend in physical sales, including vinyl, so any YoY changes reflected here are not a clean comparison and should not be interpreted as such.”
It should be noted that the RIAA, BPI, and IFPI all report year-over-year increases in 2024 vinyl shipments.
These are thoroughly documented in DMN Pro’s investigation report on the subject. Indeed, 2024 has seen a surge in Taylor Swift vinyl recordings, all of which are versions of The Tortured Poets Department. That appeared to be a dousing of lighter fluid on the record blaze, though it’s unclear how those releases showed up on Luminate’s redialed radar.
So, what comes next?
At one point, Luminate switched direction and announced that vinyl sales were up 6% year on year. A few days later, it was revealed that this unexpected gain was only possible when indie record store tallies were completely eliminated from the equation. And Billboard never updated its stats to reflect the rise (despite Luminate’s demand that DMN do so).
Enter Penske Media Corporation, which owns Billboard and Luminate. Billboard and its subsidiary Luminate appear to be discussing the next steps, possibly deciding which amended dataset to offer to the world.
Will a dramatic’reversal of a reversal’ occur?
Billboard now has a choice: switch to Luminate’s revised single-digit year-over-year growth or continue with its massive year-over-year declines. Or something in between.
In either case, there will very definitely be more vinyl-counting explosions. Stay tuned.
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