Local music retailers Musica and Look & Listen added vinyl to their shop shelves just in time for the festive shopping season, and it’s paid off.
A spokesperson at Musica says that the company started stocking vinyl in September last year, and the format has performed well over the Christmas period. It was also stressed that vinyl does remain a small contributor to overall sales.
While know-it-all music fans and Hi-Fi purists have seen this vinyl resurgence slowly unfolding over the last few years, it’s mostly been in specialist retailers and underground vinyl shops frequented by hipsters. Now, with mass-market retailers pushing the century-old analogue format, it’s gaining traction again – at between R90 and R499 for an album, depending on whether it’s a regular version or a super special edition.
A representative at Look & Listen says that it has only stocked vinyl since December last year, and sales went well: some stores had to have stock replenished, while certain other items sold through. They added that hardware is now more freely available, which makes it easier for those who want to buy records.
Indeed, the audio hardware industry has seen a spike in the sales of turntables over the last few years, with 2013 seeing record players outselling CD players. Even as an audiophile hobby vinyl is affordable – a good turntable can be had for less than R3 000, as long as you have an existing home stereo to connect it to.
Hopefully the local trends will start mirroring those seen in the US, where vinyl sales increased by 32% in 2013. In that market, with a tech-savvy audience that has access to many music streaming music services and digital music download services, LP sales have soared in the face of the digital revolution. Whether it’s baby boomers looking to relive the good old days, or Generation Y being fashionable by riding the 33rpm bandwagon, there’s no denying that it’s got some appeal.
While CD, on paper, has the sound quality advantage that comes with modern technology, many swear that vinyl recordings have superior audio quality. Those pops and crackles add warmth, and it’s said that vinyl can capture frequencies beyond 20KHz upper limit of CD.
There’s also the matter a compact disc or vinyl is not as convenient as digitally downloaded files. It could be justified that if you’re going to put effort into getting up, putting on a disc, and hitting play, it might as well be a vinyl rather than an inferior CD. Plus, most vinyls sold today have voucher codes for a free digital download of the entire album, saving consumers the effort of having to rip the recording to their digital collections.
We’ve contacted the recording industry of South Africa (RISA) to see how local music sales split up between vinyl, digital, and disc, but there was no response at the time of writing.
