(For people not living In US) is vinyl records still alive in your country?

[Arthands]

One thing I've learn is that vinyl records is alive in the US, but I am curious about the situations of it in the rest of the world. I tried to google but couldn't get any findings.

so I will like to ask people here in other countries on the status of vinyl records. Is vinyl records still surviving? Barely holding on or has been dead for years?
Will be great if you could share which countries too

 

[Crackhead_Bob]

One thing I've learn is that vinyl records is alive in the US, but I am curious about the situations of it in the rest of the world. I tried to google but couldn't get any findings.

so I will like to ask people here in other countries on the status of vinyl records. Is vinyl records still surviving? Barely holding on or has been dead for years?
Will be great if you could share which countries too

Click to shrink...

I'm from the U.S. and vinyl records are sold today as a niche consumer product, usually with a digital copy of the album.

 

[Bedameister]

Yeah you can get vinyl at any store that also sells CDs. I think vinyl has been growing steadily while CDs are on a decline.

Country: Germany

 

[skipgo]

Yes, where I live in Brazil, they can range from kinda expensive to dirt cheap depending where/what you're buying, but there's quite a few options.

 

[Remark]

I'm from the U.S. and vinyl records are sold today as a niche consumer product, usually with a digital copy of the album.

Click to shrink...

Eh, think it's become more a niche product now. If someone buys a physical version of an album most of the time it's Vinyl now.

Pretty much all of my recent music purchases have been vinyl.

 

[SeanShards]

The dedicated music shops that are left in Ireland now are almost entirely vinyl. The last one I was in maybe had two shelves of CDs and easily five times as many racks of vinyl.

 

[Hace]

There's not much of a reason to buy cd's these days, where vinyls are something unique. It makes sense.

 

[Crackhead_Bob]

Eh, think it's become more a niche product now. If someone buys a physical version of an album most of the time it's Vinyl now.

Pretty much all of my recent music purchases have been vinyl.

Click to shrink...

I always got the impression that the physical album itself being more of a status trinket than as a functional media unit, similar to how bluray/dvds are increasingly becoming secondary to digital download files.

I mean, vinyl records to degrade with each use, unless I'm not aware of newer trends these days. Aside from the album covers, vinyl never did anything for me, personally.

 

[Aldo]

Sure, it's basically the only physical media that still sells, it's for fancy people who listen to them with crappy record players. It's basically no different than buying your favourite band's T-shirt at this point. I suppose it's much-needed extra revenue for up and coming musicians (and record labels). You can only find CDs in big retailers and only old people buy them.

 

[FerrisBueller]

Yeah the music shops here all have lots of vinyl, even Sainsbury's has a vinyl section.

Country: UK (England)

 

[Remark]

I always got the impression that the physical album itself being more of a status trinket than as a functional media unit, similar to how bluray/dvds are increasingly becoming secondary to digital download files.

I mean, vinyl records to degrade with each use, unless I'm not aware of newer trends these days. Aside from the album covers, vinyl never did anything for me, personally.

Click to shrink...

I mean you are right. The reason Vinyl is taking off is because it looks better in your collection than CD's with of big gate fold and how a Vinyl physically looks. Most people buying Vinyl these days don't even own a record player.

 

[ShadowAUS]

From Australia. Vinyl is alive and well, quite a few local record stores around and more are opening up all the time. Several large online Vinyl specialist retailers and our 2 largest Hi-Fi stores (JB and Sanity) both have a large selection of decently priced vinyl including a lot of exclusive editions. The biggest problem here is VGM vinyl, it's hard to get locally and pretty expensive to get internationally (it cost me nearly $300AUD to get the Bastion, Transistor and Pyre OST's for Christmas, with shipping being nearly half of that total. That price included the discounts the Supergiant store was running for Christmas.).

 

[Carn]

yup going strong over here (Netherlands)

 

[Rellodex]

I swear CDs would still be in vogue if they weren't all super fucked up digital remasters.

My music collection is primarily CD. I still buy new releases even.

I buy a lot of used vinyl as a way of checking out music I wouldn't have otherwise.

A lot of local bands and indie/punk stuff has started to deal almost exclusively in cassette tapes for physical media.

I listen to Spotify, YouTube, and Bandcamp but my house isn't really set up to stream to my sound system.

I have a Chromecast Audio but the performance has been so spotty and Google requires their phone app to configure it in the first place.

Legitimately the easiest way for me to listen to music without a lot of serious fucking around is to put a CD in and hit play.

 

[cvxfreak]

Very much so in Japan.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

*are vinyl records

 

[Platy]

Yes, where I live in Brazil, they can range from kinda expensive to dirt cheap depending where/what you're buying, but there's quite a few options.

Click to shrink...

They are a very hipster option.
Went to a concert yesterday that had someone on stage doing live Brazilian Sign Language translation and after the show the store had vynils of the artist's last album

 

[Elfotografoalocado]

Yeah, here in Spain you have lots of vinyls sold for enthusiasts in the cities where there is enough of a market.

 

[djkimothy]

Canada: yes

 

[Geoff]

UK: Yes

We have a big record shop in my small town. Apparently sales are slightly falling after a peak in 2018 though.

 

[Polk]

Poland: Yes
You can get them in most stores that sele movies/music. Of course the range is rather limited to more popular stuff. They are often sold in stores like Lidl.

 

[NekoFever]

Yeah, they're in any dedicated record shop here in the UK. You can pick up some good cheap used ones, although there aren't really bargains to be had on harder to find stuff because everyone knows the value of everything. Most supermarkets have a small selection in the entertainment section, usually only selling a few classic albums and maybe a big new release or two.

 

[Kurita]

France : yeah it's coming back, like in other countries.

 

[shenden]

Sweden - Yes, it's been gaining a lot of traction last few years. Still an expensive hobby though and I myself will jump in soon enough after I bough myself a Rega.

 

[Chimpzy]

Belgium here. Been a long time since I've been to a general multimedia store, so I don't know what the situation is there, but the few specialty music shops I knowall carry mostly vinyl.

 

[HotAndTender]

It's pretty big in the UK. Living in Liverpool there's record stores all over the city and there's always a few people crate digging when i've gone in.

 

[radosiewka]

In Poland it is getting more popular but rather as a premium gift and an expensive hobby. There are more and more online shops that are selling those (like: https://winylownia.pl/pl/c/NOWE-PLYTY-WINYLOWE) but you can also buy them in retail & online-chains like EMPIK - Polish chain selling books, press and media products (video-games, movies etc.), a little bit like British HMV but more into books and successfully transformed for the digital era.

Every fifth music product (vinyl, CD etc.) sold in Poland is vinyl, and return on vinyl sales in the first half od 2019 was 5,3 mln PLN (circa 1,4 mln USD) - up 38,7 % to the same time in 2018 (source).

 

[Deleted member 21875]

UK, its definately come back in a big way the last few years. Not that there are many record shops about, but even HMV had a big vinyl section where I live.

 

[Skade]

France. And yup, very much alive. To the point that a bunch of stores have been setting up new dedicated booths just for vinyls in the past years. Even in smaller cities.

 

[Red Liquorice]

This is an interesting piece about the ressurgence of vinyl vs 'decline' of CDs from a UK perspective (where vinyl is bigger than ever since it's decline, but not as big as it may seem).

Were you aware that 4.3m vinyl records were sold in the UK in 2019? Sounds impressive, but in the same period 23.5m CDs were also bought by music fans.

Not that you'd really know it. Music media seems obsessed in bending the narrative – and bending the knee – to the perceived 'king' of formats: VINYL. The coverage is such that unless you have access to the data, you'd presume – in sales terms – that vinyl and CDs were neck and neck, or even that vinyl was ahead. Whereas actually, the reality is that CDs still sell more than five times as many units as vinyl records, in the UK.

Click to shrink...

It's not a vinyl bashing piece at all, just a comment on the state of how the industry is pushing vinyl as the physical format to buy - mainly because it's more expensive for the consumer.

 

[Deleted member 7051]

Seems every HMV near where I live has huge collections of records. It's kinda cool but it's not really my thing. I'd just end up buying the ones with covers I like and framing them.

 

[SilentPanda]

Not really, Taiwan, I don't even know if any Chinese or Taiwanese song are produced in that format.

 

[Famassu]

Yes. I'd even go ahead and say it might be thriving. Most (if not almost every) new releases I've seen are getting vinyl releases and they are even reissueing a whole fuckton of old albums, even from smaller Finnish bands, not just the biggest bands that are guaranteed to sell.

 

[Hadok]

yes.
and i am still buying CDs.

 

[danowat]

I mean, they sell them in supermarkets, so, yes?