Vinyl record sales in the US

Vinyl records selling like it is 1978, Netflix originals being commissioned like it is the future. Two formats, separated by half a century, on the same upward path. There is a household somewhere watching a Netflix documentary about vinyl while a record spins on the table.

Netflix original titles released per year went from a handful in 2013 to over 700 in peak years as the streaming wars forced an arms race in commissioning. US vinyl sales grew from a niche revival to outselling CDs, with over 40 million records sold in 2022 — the highest figure since 1987. Both are creatures of attention scarcity in different registers: streaming bought viewers with volume, vinyl bought listeners with permanence. The same decade rewarded both because the audience wanted more of what was disposable and more of what wasn't.

Abundance and artefact, sold in the same year. The 2010s liked to keep both options open.