Revenues from Physical Music Formats Continue to Grow
According to the RIAA 2022 Year End report, total physical music revenues in 2022 reached $1.7 billion, a 4% increase from the prior year. Vinyl records drove this growth, with revenues increasing by 17% to $1.2 billion. This marks the sixteenth consecutive year of growth for vinyl records, a testament to the format’s enduring popularity […]
Packaging Awards Deadline Extended!
Entries can be submitted entirely electronically by April 03, 2023. Great news, everyone! We are thrilled to announce that the submission process for the Making Vinyl Packaging Awards competition has been extended for another thirty days. This means that there is still time to submit your entries and showcase your best vinyl, CD, and tape […]
Clickbait Articles Belie Reality: The Vinyl Manufacturing Industry’s Resiliency
Written by Larry Jaffee Copper Magazine: Click Here for the full article. New trade advocacy group, the Vinyl Record Manufacturers Association, is establishing best practices and standards. Two recent online articles ushered in the new year with headlines that the vinyl boom could be over because the record industry couldn’t keep up with consumer demand. […]
Submissions are now open for the 2023 Making Vinyl Packaging Awards!
Making Vinyl will host a competition recognizing the best in vinyl, CD, and tape packaging in 15 categories for the sixth consecutive year. The submissions and judging process will be entirely online and requires high-resolution photographs of all entries and full-text descriptions of the packages, who are responsible for their creation, and who shall be […]
Nabil Ayers to Keynote Making Vinyl in Minneapolis
Nabil Ayers is the President of Beggars Group US, where he has run campaigns for The National (GRAMMY award winner in 2018), Big Thief (GRAMMY award nominee in 2020, 2021 & 2022), Grimes, Future Islands, and St. Vincent as well as reissue campaigns including Pixies’ album Doolittle, which was certified Platinum in 2019. Ayers is […]
Columbia Records Makes History with the Release of the First Vinyl LP Record
Columbia Records made history on June 21, 1948, by releasing the first vinyl long-playing (LP) record. The invention of the LP marked a significant milestone in the history of music technology, as it allowed for longer and higher-quality recordings to be played on turntables. The man behind this revolutionary technology was Peter Goldmark, a Hungarian-American […]
Vinyl Album Sales Reach Modern-Era High in S. with Over 2 Million Copies Sold in Single Week
Record sales in S. reached a modern-era high in the week ending December 22, with over 2 million vinyl albums sold, according to Luminate. This marks the single largest sales week for vinyl albums in the modern era (since 1991) and only the second time that weekly vinyl album sales have exceeded 2 million. The […]
Can Polylactic acid, or PLA be used in vinyl record manufacturing?
Polylactic acid, or PLA, is a type of biodegradable plastic made from renewable resources like corn starch or sugarcane. It has become a material for manufacturing vinyl records. Because PLA is biodegradable, it is a more environmentally friendly alternative to traditional materials used in vinyl record manufacturing. It is also a strong and durable material, […]
Composition of Vinyl Records
While the name of the vinyl record seems to be a dead giveaway as to its composition, underneath it is a complex mixture of a significant number of additives. Each additive contributes a particular physical aspect to the performance of the vinyl album in order to provide optimal pressing and playback. Composition of Vinyl Records – […]
Update: The Pressing Situation Since March 2022
By Larry Jaffee, Making Vinyl co-founder/conference director In March 2022, Jack White made an appeal that went viral, calling for the major labels to build their own pressing plants once again to meet consumer demand and loosen the 10-month backlogs, which have also impacted his own Third Man Pressing facility in Detroit. I knew from […]
