In 2014, the world of vinyl records was all about the past — in more ways than one. Seven of the 10 highest selling vinyl albums last year were in fact not released in 2014.
The 7 albums from the past that made the top 10 in 2014 were Lana Del Rey’s Born To Die (2012), Arctic Monkeys’ Am (2013), Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue (1959), Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black (2006), Bob Marley & The Wailers’ Legend (1984) and two stalwarts from The Beatles, Abbey Road (1969) and Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). Those albums alone accumulated 269,900 units out of 2014’s surge of 9.2 million total vinyl albums sold, with four on the list reaching the ripe old age of 30 years old or more.
Sentimentality and timely reissues were at the heart of the past’s dominance over 2014’s vinyl sales numbers. Bob Marley & The Wailers’ Legend was reissued last July to commemorate the album’s 30th anniversary and was the fifth highest selling vinyl album with 37,800 in sales, outselling The Black Keys’ Turn Blue and Lana Del Rey’s Ultraviolence, both released weeks before Legend‘s reissue.
Still, vinyl has surged to increasingly become a bigger part of the conversation in the overall music industry as of late, it’s hard to draw any hard conclusions on which albums are driving the trend. Out of 2013’s 6.1 million vinyl albums sold, none of the Top 10 were released before 2007. As newer artists like Jack White have helped to encourage more and more bands to release albums on the ancient medium, two very different musical eras — the analog age and the digital one — have seemed to come together in solidarity.
The more things change, the more they spin the same.
Updated 1/21/2015: This article has been edited to display the correct title of Lana Del Rey’s 2012 album as “Born To Die,” not “Born To Ride.”
Updated 1/22/2015 A previous version of the article mentioned The Beatles’ “Abbey Road” was featured in “The Beatles in Mono” Box Set. That has been removed since the album was not featured in the box set as Abbey Road never had an original mono mix.
