Vinyl music sales more than doubled in Australia in the past decade. The concern now is if the boom can last – and what happens if it doesn’t?
In 2012, 127,000 12-inch LPs were sold here. That number jumped to 374,000 in 2015, then 860,000 in 2018. It then hit 1.1 million in the first year of the pandemic – and that doesn’t include the market in second-hand collector’s pieces.
ARIA haven’t announced data for 2022 yet, but with 958,000 units sold in 2021, insiders are suggesting the local vinyl revival has peaked.
Melbourne-based Zenith Records, run by co-owner Paul Rigby, was Australia’s only pressing plant in the 2010s when the vinyl revival became a talking point. Rigby was happy to see the launch of Program Records in nearby Thornbury in 2022.
Brisbane’s Suitcase Records set up shop in July last year, and Rigby believes as many as four more plants are on the way. He also believes the rising cost of living will impact on the demand for vinyl, resulting in over-supply and under demand making the market increasingly competitive.
So where things were once comfortable, with the Reserve Bank recently delivering its ninth straight interest rate rise, Rigby asks, “When is the vinyl bubble going to burst? I don’t know. Nobody knows.”
He tells the Australian Financial Review, “Manufacturing is not the profitable venture it once was – there are slimmer returns”
That’s where the problem lays. “The million-dollar question is where are we all going to be in 12 months’ time?” suggests Rigby.
Up in Brisbane, Program Records – who have pressed vinyl for the likes of Jimmy Barnes and Courtney Barnett – employs 13 staff, including five casuals. Last year, they were so pushed for product their staff were on double shifts from 7am to 11pm. That has now eased to 10-hour days.
With further interest rate hikes predicted, it seems likely those workers will at least get more time at home…
