Status: 23.12.2021 3:22 p.m.
Vinyl records are making a comeback. The press capacities cannot keep up with the demand. This becomes a problem for international artists, as the current Adele album shows.
It took six years after the release of her previous album until the British singer Adele brought a new album onto the market. On November 19th of this year their fourth album was released – entitled “30”. It immediately stormed the international charts and was number one in Germany, Great Britain and the USA, among others.
In the US “Billboard Charts” “30” has been number one among the best-selling albums for four weeks. It also leads the vinyl charts: According to “Billboard”, 234,000 records have already been sold in the USA alone. This should make “30” the most successful vinyl album in 2021. It also got off to a successful start in Germany and is currently number two on the vinyl charts.
What seems like an early Christmas present to the British is a pretty big problem for other artists. Because Adele placed a large order for the sale of her vinyl album: According to the industry website “Variety”, her production company Sony had more than 500,000 records pressed in order to be able to meet the demand.
Sales of vinyl records have been increasing for years
This has an impact on the entire music industry: The British superstar Ed Sheeran had to finish his new album “Equals” earlier than originally planned due to Adele’s large order and the blocked production capacities. Otherwise he would not have been able to sell any vinyl records at all for the release of his fourth studio album. “There are only three production facilities in the world for vinyl records. So you have to register quite well in advance. Adele and her team had already booked everything,” said the singer recently on an Australian radio show.
Meanwhile, sales of vinyl records have been increasing for years. Data from the Federal Association of the Music Industry (BVMI) and GfK Entertainment show that around 4.2 million records were sold in Germany last year – an increase of more than 20 percent compared to 2019. The number of playback devices sold has also increased recently clear: 63,000 turntables were sold in Germany in the first half of 2021. Vinyl has been making a comeback for some time now, and records are becoming increasingly popular.
Florian Drücke, BMVI CEO, still finds this surprising. “With a sales share of 5.5 percent, vinyl is meanwhile again the third-strongest format in the overall market for music sales. The dynamism that we have seen here for 14 years is unbroken and for many people again and again in view of the omnipresent digital forms of use,” he said to publish the numbers in summer.
Capacities less than demand
According to “Billboard”, around 160 million records were pressed worldwide in 2020. In the current year, the number could be significantly higher again. However, the demand is far greater. Billboard estimates it is “somewhere between 320 million and 400 million” records.
The few manufacturers who produce vinyl records around the world cannot keep up with this enormous interest. Even before the pandemic, the demand had far exceeded the supply of press capacities. Adele had also criticized the fact that six months before the album was released, vinyl productions had to be registered.
Delivery bottlenecks also burden the situation
Worldwide there is only limited capacity for the production of records. In Europe there are only five major companies producing vinyl records. One of them is “optimal media”, a German media company with headquarters in Röbel / Müritz. There, too, the comeback of the record can be felt. “The demand for the production of records is still very high and our production capacities are already very well utilized far ahead,” said Petra Funk, spokeswoman for “optimal media”, when asked by tagesschau.de.
The company has four locations that produce 40 million records annually. “The actual pressing process for a record takes around 25 seconds. Before that can happen, a number of other steps and thus more time are necessary,” says Funk. Other companies are already working to the limit of their capacity: “Production capacities are running at full capacity, internal processes are optimized as best as possible, and investments are made in new machines,” said Christiane Wakulat, Key Account Manager at MPO, one of the leading manufacturers of audio and data carriers “Music Week”.
In addition to the high demand, external factors are further exacerbating the current situation. The scarcity of raw materials and the associated delivery bottlenecks add to the problem. It is not currently possible to foresee when the situation will ease.