This past spring, after decades of procrastination, I decided to catalog my modest vinyl record collection, though I did dread the thought of untold hours of mindless data entry. Happily, it didn’t come to that – yes, there was a fair bit of typing, and scanning, and typing, and scanning, and, typing, and, well, you get the idea – but honestly, I do like Discogs, really, I do!
This cataloging exercise rekindled an interest in all/most/some things analog. I soon discovered deadformat.com, (essentially a Discogs variant), and thanks to its robust import mechanism, had a copy of my collection up on the Dead Format website in under an hour. …oh, right, and with the added benefit of being able to upload the correct cover art, (an obsession of mine)!
OK, so why am I prattling on about cataloging vinyl records? Let’s start with that name that’s firmly tongue in cheek – deadformat.com. According to the RIAA year-end revenue report for 2025, vinyl sales topped $1B – so, no, I don’t think it’s a dead format at all, quite the contrary. In fact, I’m willing to join the chorus of online voices making the bold claim physical media is experiencing a resurgence, (and arguably has been for some time).
If I reflect on my own vinyl purchasing pattern dating back some forty years, it parallels the broader consumer trend, (relative to vinyl record sales), resembling a shallow “V”, gradually dipping to near zero roughly a quarter century ago, then increasing – albeit erratically – but increasing nonetheless, ever since. No, not dead.
I’ve seen those same online voices breathlessly reporting compact disc sales are on the rebound as well, with the growth rate during the first half of 2026 apparently outpacing the growth rate of vinyl record sales during the same period. Oh dear! Have we reached a plateau, or dare I say, the plateau, for vinyl? …for CDs? Doubtful on both counts – color me ‘cautiously optimistic’!
Indulge me for a moment while we work our way through a brief thought experiment. Does the proverbial pie chart depicting recorded music sales just keep getting cut into different sized slices depending on the whims of the all-too-fickle consumer in any given year? If your answer is “yes”, then you must subscribe to the ‘zero sum’ theory for how recorded music is consumed in all its forms – that is, for vinyl to grow, another format has to shrink. Hmmmm, I’m not entirely sure I’m a believer…
Or rather, should we visualize consumer behavior – at least when it comes to recorded music – using a Venn diagram instead – one where vinyl, streaming subscriptions, compact discs, and magnetic tape-based media overlap with one another?
Again, if I reflect on my own purchasing pattern, the Venn diagram strikes me as a more accurate depiction than the pie chart simply because it allows for “…yes, and…” choices to be made vs. limiting the range of options to just “…either, or…” choices.