Norwich record seller praises vinyl, as sales of records beat digital downloads

Norwich Market record stall, Mare's Nest Music.Picture: ANTONY KELLY (Image: Archant Norfolk 2016)

Figures compiled by the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) showed that nationally, listeners spent £2.4m on vinyl last week, compared to just £2.1m on digital downloads.

And Ian Goldsmith, who owns Mare's Nest Music on Norwich market said he was not surprised, and that prices had gone up when buying vinyl to reflect its popularity.

'Vinyl is better than anything else, it's a piece of art,' he said.

He added more was spent on vinyl because 'with downloads if you really want to you can get a lot of it for free', but that with a record you can't hit shuffle or skip a song, so people make an investment.

Some of his favourite songs had been found because he had not been able to skip past album tracks, he said.

The data for one week doe not show the full picture, especially at a time when people may be buying Christmas presents, but it is thought viynl could overtake digital by next year, as the gap has been closing since 2013.

This year so far vinyl albums have generated £50m compared with £106m for downloads, a gap of £56m.

Compared to the same period last year, the gap was £112, and it was £145m in 2014, and £183m in 2013.

And with retailers such as Sainsbury's and Tesco beginning to stock vinyl in the last two year, ERA chief executive Kim Bayley said: 'The figures are definitely part of a long-term trend rather than a blip.'

However, the higher cost of vinyl still puts it a long way behind downloads in terms of units sold.