Vinyl Outselling CDs For First Time Since 1987

Above, some of my vinyl records. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Sales of vinyl records topped CDs for the first time in over 30 years.

This is not surprising to me, vinyl sounds much better than CDs in my opinion. Even though I do buy CD (mainly because my RV has a built-in CD player), I have bought several LPs and 45 rpm singles in recent years and kept all of my vinyl records that I purchased since the early 1960s. 

Back in the late 1960s on through the 1980s, I divided by purchases between cassette tapes and vinyl. For my car cassette players, I later started buying just vinyl and made cassette tape copies for my cars.

CBS News reported:

Vinyl records are back and more popular than ever. A new report found that vinyl record sales continued their more than decade-long growth in 2022, and for the first time in more than three decades, outsold CDs in the number of units. 

The report, published by the Recording Industry Association of America on Thursday, found that physical formats of music saw another year of overall growth in 2022, totaling $1.7 billion. Making up nearly three-quarters of that growth were vinyl records, which saw a 17% increase in revenues for $1.2 billion. This marked the product's 16th year of consecutive growth, RIAA said. 

It also marked the first time since 1987 that more vinyl records were sold than CDs, which saw a revenue decline of 18% in 2022. The group said that 41 million vinyl albums were sold last year, compared to 33 million CDs.

To read more, go here. 

New Cassette Player

Above, the new stereo set at its temporary location in the living room. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

For various reasons over the years, all of my cassette tape players have become broken. Some from internal damage or from years of non-use.

I finally bit the bullet and bought a stereo set that includes a cassette player, turntable, CD player and other features. It is not the greatest unit, but at least it serves the purpose given its relatively low price.

I have 200-300 cassette tapes that I have purchased since 1968.

During the late 1960s, cassette, 4-track and 8-track tape players came on the market. 4-tracks seemed to have disappeared relatively fast in favor of 8-track players. I was not impressed with 8-track players as they were much larger than cassettes and they often would interrupt song by changing tracks.

Cassettes, on the other hand, were smaller, and because of their two-sided format, emulated LPs with the order of the tape's play list. They were convenient and the only real flaw with them was the noticeable hiss when played. The Dolby noise-reduction system ("Dolby B") was developed to counter the hissing.

As things turned out, cassettes eventually put 8-tracks out of business.

Right now, I have the stereo set on a small table. Unfortunately, the speaker wires are only about two feel long (RCA type) and this prevents me from putting the unit into the entertainment center (except for the speaker wire problem, the unit would fit nicely). So I have ordered a couple of 12' speaker wire extensions so I can put the unit into the entertainment center. Since I have another stereo set in the den (one without a cassette player), this one will remain in the living room.

I listened to some of my tapes yesterday and they brought back a lot of memories. 

Just In Time For Halloween

My CD of "The Original Music From Dark Shadows" arrived in the mailbox today. I am playing it now as I write this.

So far, the sound quality is excellent. I already have this album in cassette, bought when it first came out in 1969. It it well worn (still playable, though).

This edition has some bonuses (the radio interviews) that were not in the original album.

The tracks are:

1. Opening Themes: Dark Shadows/Collinwood
2. I'll Be With You, Always
3. Josette's Theme
4. A Darkness At Collinwood
5. Meditations
6. Night Of The Pentagram
7. When I Am Dead
8. No.1 At The Blue Whale
9. Shadows Of The Night (Quentin's Theme)
10. The Secret Room
11. Epitaph
12. Seance
13. I, Barnabas
14. Back At The Blue Whale
15. The Old House
16. Epilogue/Dark Shadows
17. Radio Interviews (1968)-Jonathan Frid, Grayson Hall, Roger Davis, Humbert Allen Astredo...
18. Radio Interview (1969)-David Selby

Above, Jonathan Frid as Barnabas Collins.

Just in time for Halloween!