Live Photos by David Brendan Hall (Twenty One Pilots) and Heather Kaplan (Radiohead)
Music analytics service BuzzAngle Music has published its first-ever yearly report on US music consumption. It’s filled with fascinating statistics on everything from audio streaming (which reached a record high of 250.7 billion songs this year) to trending genres (at 18.2%, hip-hop/rap was the top genre in terms of total song consumption). Given the continued explosion of streaming, it’s unsurprising that physical albums sales are down 11.7% overall from 2015, but there’s one bright spot for traditional record stores: Vinyl record sales rose 25.9% in 2016.
Rock music contributed the most to vinyl’s strong performance in 2016, with 63% of vinyl albums sold from the combined rock genres. Twenty One Pilots’ 2015 record Blurryface was the top-selling vinyl album of 2016 Other recently released titles that cracked the top 5 include Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool and Adele’s 25.
One of the more interesting aspects of vinyl’s resurgence is that it’s largely based on “deep catalog” titles released over three years ago. Amy Winehouse’s 2006 album Back to Black was the year’s second-highest seller, and The Beatles’ 1969 classic Abbey Road came in at No. 4. Rounding out the top 10 are David Bowie’s Blackstar, Prince and the Revolution’s Purple Rain, Bob Marley and the Wailers’ Legend, Twenty One Pilots’ Vessel, and Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue. The Bowie and Prince figures can probably be attributed to both singers’ deaths, but there’s no explaining how Twenty One Pilots landed two albums in the top 10.
Check out the 25 top-selling vinyl albums of 2016 below.
01. Twenty One Pilots – Blurryface (49,004 album sales)
02. Amy Winehouse – Back to Black (41,087)
03. Radiohead – A Moon Shaped Pool (39,861)
04. The Beatles – Abbey Road (39,615)
05. Adele – 25 (39,512)
06. David Bowie – Blackstar (39,334)
07. Prince and the Revolution – Purple Rain (35,244)
08. Bob Marley and the Wailers – Legend (32,899)
09. Twenty One Pilots – Vessel (31,006)
10. Miles Davis – Kind of Blue (30,495)
11. Various Artists – Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Mix Vol. 1 (30,328)
12. Chris Stapleton – Traveller (29,707)
13. Lana Del Rey – Born to Die (27,450)
14. Fleetwood Mac – Rumours (26,644)
15. Michael Jackson – Thriller (26,092)
16. Blink-182 – California (25,549)
17. Panic! at the Disco – Death of a Bachelor (24,861)
18. The Lumineers – Cleopatra (24,120)
19. Taylor Swift – 1989 (23,364)
20. Adele – 21 (22,616)
21. Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin IV (20,919)
22. Arctic Monkeys – A.M. (20,731)
23. Nirvana – Nevermind (20,255)
24. Leon Bridges – Coming Home (19,631)
25. David Bowie – The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (19,373)
Read BuzzAngle Music’s full 2016 report here.
