There was a flurry of headlines earlier this week claiming vinyl sales were down 33 percent this year, which would have been the first decline in 17 years. Don’t fret, though: it turns out sales were actually up 6.2 percent — Luminate, the firm which handles most of the music industry’s metrics, changed its methodology at the beginning of the year.
In Luminate’s mid-year report, the company stated: “While the new modeled methodology more accurately represents the independent retail market, we do not have comparable historical data to provide an accurate year-over-year trend. Therefore, independent retail physical sales are not included in our H1 2024 vs. H1 2023 U.S. physical sales reporting.”
The Discogs blog has a full dive, including an explanation of the metrics change. Counting things: a never-ending challenge.
[Discogs]
