Vinyl Sales Hit New Record

I'm serious, sort of. This year's vinyl sales have already topped 2 million units, according to Nielsen Soundscan, the most on record.

The catch: Soundscan started measuring in 1991, well after the end of the vinyl era.

Want to put that number in perspective?

• In 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression, about 5 million records were sold.
• Throughout the '20s, annual record-sale totals stayed around the 150 million mark.

The number is disappointing in another way: Last year Nielsen Soundscan predicted 2009 vinyl sales of 2.9 million units, and the 2 million mark was reached in early November, so sales will probably fall well short of that expectation. Still, a VERY healthy year-over-year increase is expected; billboard.biz predicts the year-over-year increase in vinyl sales will still be 37%.

The comparison to historic levels isn't fair of course, since it ignores CD sales, which, though dropping fast, last year totaled 362 million.