In fact, of the total of physical music revenue in the first half of 2020, vinyl took away 62 percent of total revenue, totalling some $232 million in sales, while the other 38% came from CD-roms. This could at least partly be because CD players are super hard to come by these days, with a lot of laptops no longer coming with them and streaming taking over and changing hardware of our products. But it’s not all good news: apparently, physical sales revenue fell below streaming revenue and digital download revenue for the first time ever, suggesting that for practical reasons, most people listen to streaming music. It looks like buying vinyl might be more of a collectors hobby — and not an unfair one at that, considering that vinyl may be getting way more expensive pretty soon. It was just a few months ago, after all, that a massive fire at Apollo Masters, which manufactures the lacquer that makes vinyl records, had completely destroyed all of their facilities and most of their stock. They were the major supplier of lacquer for the entire world, and at the time of the fire, there were considerable questions about whether or not the costs of vinyl would blow up as a result of the fire. Well, either way, vinyl is still selling — and with more modern artists selling vinyl versions of their albums than ever, we’re sure it’s here to stay, even if it is a hobby for most.
