While the trend has been for people to upload music onto their iPods, phones, and mp3 players, for the first time since 2011, sales of CDs and vinyl have surpassed the sales of digital downloads, thanks in large part to streaming services.
According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), music streaming accounted for 65 percent of U.S. music industry revenues in 2017, with physical sales bringing in 17 percent, digital downloads bringing in 15 percent, and synch at 3 percent.
People visit Third Man Records in Nashville every day to search through and buy vinyl records, showing that there is still popularity in the medium.
"This is one of the main reasons we came to Nashville," Derek Pease, a visitor from Portland, Oregon, said. "Personally, I think I've seen an increase within my generation and my peers, more people buying vinyl again."
Pease himself is a big Jack White fan, but would have went to the record store even if it wasn't affiliated with White. "I think there's always a spot for vinyl records. You just can't replace the 'holding it' experience and looking through it."
Third Man Records started in 2009, right when digital music started to explode with iPods and iTunes, and they found that people continued to want vinyl records.
"For some people, it's nostalgia, some people, it's new and exciting," Ben Blackwell, who is officially listed Pinball Wizard and Director of Operations at Third Man Records, which he co-founded, said. "We put a lto of passion and care into the manufacturing and the presentation of it."
Blackwell acknowledged that digital downloads can be much easier to deal with, not having to produce a physical product, and that streaming can be extremely beneficial to a music listener, but vinyl is still where many go once they find something they love.
"Casual listening or just checking something out, that's what you use streaming, or that's what YouTube is for," Blackwell explained. "But vinyl records is kind of a symbol of, 'I support this artist and I put my money where my mouth is as a fan of them.'"
The overall revenues from recorded music increased by 16.5 percent in 2017, bringing in an estimated retail value of $8.7 billion. Much of that growth was attributed to growth in paid music subscription services like Spotify, Amazon, Tidal, AppleMusic, Pandora, and others.
It's the first time since 1999 that U.S. music revenues grew materially for two years in a row.
The data from RIAA found that revenues from digital downloads fell 25 percent to $1.3 billion in 2017, while shipments of physical products, like CDs and vinyl, decreased just 4 percent to $1.5 billion in 2017, which is a lower rate of decline than in recent years.
All of the information and statistics can be found in a data analysis published by RIAA.
