Vinyl Sales Rise While Streaming Revenues Plateau: …Let’s get to the good news first. Vinyl sales rose by 22% in the first half of the year, with almost 22 million units sold. This brought in about $570 million, which accounts for about 10% of the recorded music revenue generated in the U.S. Despite facing numerous supply chain issues, the vinyl industry keeps growing, with current factories expanding and new ones coming online. Even so, the wait time for a release hasn’t changed much, with deliveries that stretch out as long as 9 months still being reported. CDs weren’t so lucky, however. After a huge sales increase of almost 21% in 2021, they fell back down to earth in the first half of this year, decreasing by 2.2%. That’s not a lot, but it does return to a degenerative trend where the format has been losing its popularity every year.
UK | ‘There’s endless choice, but you’re not listening’: fans quitting Spotify to save their love of music: Former streaming service subscribers on why they have ditched mod cons for MP3s, CDs and other DIY music formats. Meg Lethem was working at her bakery job one morning in Boston when she had an epiphany. Tasked with choosing the day’s soundtrack, she opened Spotify, then flicked and flicked, endlessly searching for something to play. Nothing was perfect for the moment. She looked some more, through playlist after playlist. An uncomfortably familiar loop, it made her realise: she hated how music was being used in her life. “That was the problem,” she says. “Using music, rather than having it be its own experience … What kind of music am I going to use to set a mood for the day? What am I going to use to enjoy my walk? I started not really liking what that meant.” It wasn’t just passive listening, but a utilitarian approach to music that felt like a creation of the streaming environment. “I decided that having music be this tool to [create] an experience instead of an experience itself was not something I was into,” she reflects. So she cut off her Spotify service, and later, Apple Music too, to focus on making her listening more “home-based” and less of a background experience.
Buffalo, NY | Record Theatre redevelopment into The Monroe kicks off with financing secured: he long-awaited redevelopment of the former Record Theatre complex on Main Street in Buffalo into retail and commercial space has begun, after the partners behind the $7 million project secured the construction financing they needed to get started. The development team, led by Jason Yots of Common Bond Real Estate, is transforming the cluster of buildings at 1786 Main St. and 1040 Lafayette Ave. into The Monroe, featuring a combination of 17 affordable workforce apartments and 11,000 square feet of street-level commercial space. Located at the corner of Main Street and Lafayette Avenue, the vacant 34,000-square-foot complex consisted of four properties and structures on Main and Lafayette, all dating to the 1920s. Formerly known as the Monroe Building, the primary building at 1786 Main was originally an automobile showroom for Monroe Motor Car Co. and others, before it became a well-known music store for several decades under former owner Leonard Silver.
Pro-Ject unveils new turntable and vinyl noise reduction system: Time for an upgrade? Pro-Ject is launching a new turntable, called the Debut PRO S, as well as a vinyl noise reduction system, Vinyl NRS Box S3, this September. Joining the original Debut PRO, the Debut PRO S is capable of playing 33, 45 and 78 RPM records. The new model also features a 10” S-shaped tonearm, and a heavy aluminium platter, which has a ring of TPE damping to help reduce resonance. It comes with a Pick-IT S2 C cartridge pre-installed. The turntable is available now for £799. The Vinyl NRS Box S3 connects between the phono stage and the amplifier, and uses a digital signal processing algorithm to improve playback. The company claims this “effectively removes noise and ‘crackles’ from older, worn vinyl records — restoring your listening experience to like the record was new again.”
Honolulu, HI | Honolulu-based record label celebrates music both old and new: Although Roger Bong was born in the late 80s, he has a special appreciation for vinyl and music from before his time. In fact, Bong is so passionate about it, he has his own record label called Aloha Got Soul. “I was just collecting records and me and my friends were making hip-hop beats, so we were sampling vinyl, and it just so happened that we started finding local records that sounded as good as anything else out there in the world,” Bong said. Bong started Aloha Got Soul as a blog in 2010 and later turned it into a record label in 2015. Just last year, he found a physical space on King and McCully streets and evolved it into both a record label and record store. “We’re selling vinyl,” he said. “We sell our releases because … we have a record label where we’re reissuing local music from the past.” Bong said they’re able to get music from groups like Kalapana back to vinyl.
