Vinyl’s resurgence continues apace. Industry figures released in the US reveal that sales of new albums increased by 14.5% last year over 2018. This upward trend, according to the Nielsen Music/MRC Data’s 2019 Year-End Music Report (https://protect-za.mimecast.com/s/e-T5C58w6puMzygkizDgC7?domain=billboard.com), comes at a time when overall album sales, both on CD and downloads, are falling as music-on-demand and streaming services continue to rise.

Vinyl sales still account for a tiny share of the market and have a way to go before reaching anything near the highs of their 1980s heyday. Consider, for example, Post Malone’s year. The rapper/singer’s Hollywood’s Bleeding was 2019’s most streamed album, with songs from it racking up 365.4 million on-demand streams alone in the first week of its release in September. 

By contrast, the year’s biggest vinyl seller was the Beatles’ Abbey Road, which was reissued in September to much fanfare to mark the 50th anniversary of its original release. It sold 246,000 copies in the US. Abbey Road, which had been reissued on vinyl on several occasions since the 2009 remastered overhaul of the Beatles catalogue, was also the decade’s top-selling vinyl release...