Rolling Stone - USA (2020-02)

February 2020 | Rolling Stone | 27

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An Album That Can Do Both

Can an album pull in more than 2 billion

streams and also be the top-selling vinyl

album of the year? Billie Eilish’s debut

LP, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do

We Go?, proved to be the album that

can do both, and also disproved anyone

who thought Gen Z doesn’t buy music.

When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We

Go? sold almost 12,000 more copies

than any other album.

A Blockbuster Soundtrack

If the 2010s had an equivalent to the

Forrest Gump soundtrack, it would be

the soundtrack to Marvel’s superhero

blockbuster Guardians of the Galaxy. It’s

a commercial juggernaut, and one that’s

made for the turntable, with classics like

“Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” David

Bowie’s “Moonage Daydream,” and the

Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back.” Fifty-

seven percent of the album’s physical

sales last year were vinyl sales.

Vinyl Sales Up to

Over 10 Million

MANY INDUSTRY EXPERTS feared that the

growth of digital music — first downloads, then

streaming — would send record collections the way of

the eight-track and the VHS tape, quashing any notion

of music being something that people actually owned.

But throughout the 2010s, the numbers showed that

listeners are still extremely interested in buying actual

physical albums — that is, if those albums are 10 or 12

inches wide.

Vinyl sales soared throughout the decade, and that

trend continued in 2019. Vinyl sales in the U.S. increased

10.5 percent, to 10.7 million, with LPs accounting for 19.2

percent of all physical album sales, according to Alpha

dence that their comeback coincided with the Polaroid

camera’s. But there are signs that it isn’t all nostalgia: In

2019, Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift, and Harry Styles released

albums that were massively successful on vinyl. Younger

fans want something to hold onto as well.

Data. Since 2014 alone, vinyl album sales in the U.S. have

grown 175 percent.

There’s certainly a nostalgia factor at play, with legacy

acts like the Beatles and Pink Floyd consistently having

the top LPs of each year. And it probably isn’t a coinci-

WHILE THE GREATEST-HITS ALBUM may be on its way out — who needs it

when you can make your own greatest-hits playlist on Spotify? — reissues

are still very much alive. In 2019, labels continued to repackage and remaster old

material and dig into the vault for unreleased tracks, in an effort to bring a second

life to decades-old albums. Abbey Road’s 50th-anniversary reissue featured 23 out-

takes and demos; Prince’s 1999 had “Purple Music,” an 11-minute fan favorite that had

existed in bootleg form for 37 years but never got a proper release. Both hit the RS

200 upon rerelease, with Abbey Road at Number Three and 1999 at Number 31. And

as this graph shows, they also caused a spike in popularity for each classic album.

CASSETTE

SALES

16%

VINYL

SALES

57%

123K

CD

SALES

27%

79.6K

69.9K

66.7K

3

2

1

4

5

Queen

Bohemian

Rhapsody

Hollywood

The Beatles

Abbey Road

Capitol

Billie Eilish

When We All

Fall Asleep...

Interscope

Various Artists

Guardians of

the Galaxy, Vol. 1

Hollywood

Taylor Swift

Lover

Republic

101K

112.8K

This list measures vinyl sales in the U.S. from January 1st through December 31st, 2019, as recorded by Alpha

Data. For the full list of the top albums of 2019, visit RollingStone.com/charts/albums/year-end.

Top Vinyl Albums

SALES

1/18

800K

600K

400K

200K

0

12/18 1/20

Weekly Vinyl Sales in the U.S. Over Time

4/21/18

Record Store

Day 211K

12/14/18

529K

4/13/19

Record Store

Day 250K

12/13/19

644K

6/18 6/19

700K

500K

300K

100K

The Reissue Boost

1/19 1/20

35K

30K

25K

20K

15K

10K

5K

0

Prince Abbey Road 11/29/19

Reissue

9/27/19 released 12K

Reissue

released 33K

4/19 8/19 11/19

Weekly Vinyl Sales in the U.S. in 2019