US and UK: Is vinyl still cool?

Streaming may be the dominant way to listen to music, but vinyl records remain an important revenue stream for artists, while helping serve the consumer’s desire to collect albums.

More consumers in Great Britain indicate a willingness to buy music on vinyl compared to last year, according to YouGov Profiles (32% in April 2021 vs. 34% in April 2022).

Drilling down into generational data, we see notable year-over-year jump in willingness among Gen Z (23% in 2021 vs. 26% in 2022) and Baby Boomers (38% vs. 42%).

Willingness in the US is just as strong, with 31% indicating they’d be open to shelling out cash for an album, compared to 30% last year. Notably, willingness has dropped among Gen Z consumers to 23% this year, compared to 30% last year. Willingness has remained stable at 28% among Millennials (28%) and Gen Xers (32% vs. 33%). Baby Boomers are more likely to open their wallets compared to last year (33% vs. 37%).

While there remains a healthy consumer market for vinyl, these albums are likely to sit on a shelf rather than appear on a turntable — just 10% of Brits tell us they’ve listened to music on vinyl they own in the last six months, while 11% of Americans say the same. For comparison, 58% of Brits (and 54% of Americans) report listening to music on the radio in the last half-year and 32% of Brits and 35% of Americans have streamed music online.

Data indicates the revenue generated from releasing physical records in a streaming world shows no sign of slowing.

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Methodology: YouGov Profiles is based on continuously collected data and rolling surveys, rather than from a single limited questionnaire. Profiles data is nationally representative and weighted by age, gender, education, region, and race. Learn more about Profiles.