Record Store Day may have been disrupted by the coronavirus in 2020, but it’s still managed to boost physical music sales.
The third and final vinyl drop of 2020 for Record Store Day took place on October 24. Artists who supported the latest edition of RSD with exclusive new product included Alice Cooper, Daft Punk, Lewis Capaldi, Sports Team, Calexico and Neneh Cherry.
According to Official Charts Company data, there were 124,636 vinyl album sales for the latest chart week (44) during which Record Store Day drop three took place. As well as registering a 41.2% week-on-week increase, vinyl album sales were up 27.4% year-on-year.
The limited edition clear vinyl of Lewis Capaldi’s Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent helped the album continue its Top 10 run.
While it’s unfair to compare the third vinyl drop of 2020 with the performance of a single edition of Record Store Day in 2019, vinyl album sales for the latest chart week were down just 15% compared to RSD in April 2019 (146,611 vinyl album sales).
Overall anecdotal evidence from retailers shows that they were happy with their performance across all three drops
Megan Page
“Overall we were pleased with the results of the third Drop,” said ERA’s Record Store Day coordinator Megan Page. “It is, however, difficult to compare each RSD drop as there were a different number of titles available in each drop as well as the fact that we do not have full visibility of independent online sales.
“Given that more than 50% of the titles were released in drop one, this was always going to be the biggest sales driver for RSD. There were always going to be regional variations due to the different Covid tiers in operation too. But overall anecdotal evidence from retailers shows that they were happy with their performance across all three drops.”
Physical had a 24.5% share of the overall artist albums market in chart week 44, up from 21% in the prior week. Physical artist album sales were up 27.2% week-on-week.
Overall physical sales (including compilations) were up 23.45% week-on-week to 458,536 and a total market share of 23.45%, the highest since the first week of 2020.
The vinyl market was also helped by Q4 releases, including more than 6,000 sales on 12” for Bruce Springsteen’s No.1 album Letter To You.
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