Gen Z buy more vinyl than millennials, new study finds

A new study has found that Gen Z buy more vinyl records than millennials.

According to a survey conducted by MRC Data, 4,041 people aged 13 and over were questioned over the course of two weeks about their musical influences, inspirations and purchases, with 15 per cent of Generation Z respondents – people commonly identified as being born roughly between 1997 and 2012 – claiming to have purchased vinyl albums in the previous 12 months.

This compared with only 11 per cent of millennials who said that they purchased vinyl over the last year.

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It comes after sales of vinyl records in the UK in 2020 were the highest on record since the early 1990s.

The figures by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) revealed that nearly one in five (18 per cent) of all albums purchased last year were vinyl, with 4.8 million LPs being purchased. The new numbers were up on 2019’s figures, and the highest since the Britpop boom of the early 1990s.

Lana Del Rey; Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters; Celeste. CREDIT: Jim Dyson/Getty Images; Kevin Winter/Getty Images for iHeartMedia; Rodolfo Sassano / Alamy Stock Photo

Campaigns such as LoveRecordStores, Record Store Day and National Album Day also helped rally sales for independent record shops and specialist chains.

Last year also saw vinyl outsell CDs for the first time since the 1980s. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), vinyl contributed a staggering $232 million (£181 million) to total physical sales of $376 million (£278 million) in the first half of 2020.

Meanwhile, the best selling vinyl sales in the UK in the early part of 2021 saw Lana Del Rey‘s ‘Chemtrails Over The Country Club‘ top the list with 17,300 copies, according to Official Charts‘ year-to-date vinyl albums chart.

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Foo Fighters‘ ‘Medicine At Midnight‘, came in second, with Bicep‘s ‘Isles‘ at number three.

Celeste‘s debut album ‘Not Your Muse‘ came in at number four, followed by Arlo Parks‘ Mercury Prize winning debut ‘Collapsed In Sunbeams‘ at number five.