Did vinyl sales just hit the proverbial brick wall?

Rihanna put on a great show at the SB! Who would you rather see, 80 year old Bob Dylan singing Blowing in the Wind? I am a big Dylan fan and I still wouldn't want to see that. It's 2023! Not the 60's or 70's. 

Anyway, I have two nieces under 30 that are both into records, I was in a record store last week and saw a 20 year old, they are far and few between, but they exist. As for records peaking, I would say they are leveling off, the classics will always be worth something. Some of the new stuff will become classics (Taylor Swift for one) and others will be in the cut-out bin.

So...vinyl and cassette sales both grew but the market for physical media overall is shrinking.The vinyl revival has always been niche in the context of overall music consumption. If the figures quoted are accurate, it hasn't hit a brick wall. Just the growth of uptake has slowed.

That's hardly a surprise. It's a very expensive way to reproduce what are now mainly digital files originally. And now that those files are available streamed in their original format - which is increasingly high resolution digital - the usp of vintyl decreases.

As a final negative, vinyl is environmentally unfriendly and the recent state of oil prices will have done nothing to improve pricing of vinyl releases.

Despite all that, sales are still growing.

The issue may be that the LP is being sold as a premium product that is worth a high price. If the market has softened I would think the manufacturers have a lot of room to cut the price, pocketing their profits from the flush times and picking up what lesser profits remaining to be had. If, as I believe, the vinyl market is primarily driven by some listeners' distaste for the digital sound, I think there would always be a hard core to support it. 

@grislybutter , my kids are millennials and grew up listening to everything and the only one interested in a turntable is my son in law. You see hardly any interest in Zoomers. A record store will give you a false impression because you have isolated record buyers from the rest of the population who are obviously not represented in the record store. You'll never find me in a used record store. I have records dating from the late 50's onwards that I purchased new. I have all the old records I need.

@yoyoyaya , sales may be growing for the time being but this is only a snapshot. You have to watch the trend over time. Right now they are growing because old guys like me need something to spend their money on and there is a modest interest in young adults. Both populations will decline over time and take the record sales with them. Zoomers are quite happy locked in a closet with their telephone and computer.

I last saw Dylan live in 2001, and he was fantastic, far better than he been when I saw him 10 years earlier. But then he was playing better music, and had a far, far better band. Of course, that was 22 years ago now. But he still has great material, and a great band. Um, yeah, I’d rather see him at 80 than Rihanna, whatever her age. But that’s just me.

I consider my fortunate in getting to see and hear Big Joe Turner in the mid-80’s---when he was in his mid-70’s, shortly before his death. By far the greatest male singer I’ve ever heard live. And backing him were The Blasters, with the great Lee Allen blowing tenor sax. Awesome!