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(Image: Nicholas Nguyen on Unsplash)
This is the age of on-demand delivery. Everything is at your fingertips (depending on a good Wi-Fi/data signal, of course). Just 30 years ago, it would have been unthinkable for him to be able to instantly play a song stuck in his head. In your bag with your Sony Walkman.
Now you can listen to anything at your fingertips, wherever you are, and to be honest, it’s a little overwhelming. Missing. There is some indescribable magic lost in having music as this strange, immaterial, ephemeral thing on Spotify or Apple Music.
Looking back at physical music sales in 2022, it seems many are feeling the same instant gratification fatigue. According to The Digital Entertainment and Retail Association (ERA), in 2022 he will have £280.4m worth of physical music copies (vinyl, CDs, cassettes, etc.) sold in the UK. Sales are still very strong, especially when streaming looks like he’s dominating the market with earnings of £1.6611 billion.
“There is some indescribable magic lost in having music as this strange, immaterial, ephemeral thing with Spotify or Apple music.”
Record sales have grown tremendously, reaching £150.5m (up 11% last year alone). For the first time since 1987, record sales will outsell his CDs in 2022. So while physical sales may never match or surpass a company like Spotify’s dominance in the streaming market, this information will be useful regardless of the odds for vinyl, CD and and indicates that the cassette is kept alive.
“After all, these physical copies of music always have a story attached to them, and there’s something warm, vague, and undeniably fascinating.”
Did physical music sales help when you were stuck at home for an unspeakable period, suddenly slowing your pace and forcing you to understand what really mattered? Perhaps we find ourselves surrounded by all the clutter of the past decade and little else to do. The magic of CDs and the rustling vinyl sleeves of Fleetwood Macs that our parents still have in their living rooms? There’s something ambiguous and undeniably fascinating about it.
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