Mix Blog Live: Dumpster Diving? Crate Digging?

A month or two back, the Recording Industry Association of America released its year-end revenue report on music sales in the United States for 2024. The findings mark the first time that paid streaming subscriptions surpassed 100 million in the U.S. 

While that’s not much of a surprise, it may be somewhat surprising to learn that sales of vinyl records continued to grow for the 18th straight year, accounting for almost three-quarters of physical format sales, and a tidy sum of around $1.4 billion—the highest since 1984. Wow. I had hair back then!

This is not the first time we’ve explored the topic (see Vinyl Rising… Pass It On) and why it remains popular, but today—as I made a few record-hunting stops with a tour mate on a day off in Sacramento—I was reminded of the record jaunts my cousin Frank and I would make. Or maybe it was more like he was making the record jaunt and dragging his little cousin along. 

Frank was (is) six years my senior, and somehow when I was in my early teens he became entrusted with steadfastly coaxing me down the road of good rock music, turning me on to bands like The Stones, The Kinks, Deep Purple, Jethro Tull, et al. My older sisters were listening mostly to pop music at the time (which was actually pretty decent in the late 1970s/early 1980s), but Frank’s taste in music resonated with me, not in small part due to the fact that I was learning the drums and marveled at Ian Paice’s command of the kit. 

READ MORE: Mix Blog Live—Pardon the Delay.

Anyway, Frank and I would make trips every so often to stores that had new and used records. I remember going with him to a record store called Titus Oaks, and it was a revelation: The place was stacked with bins of used records. My funds were limited at the time, but I could find tons of used vinyl records, often priced at $3 or $4 each. If I had scraped together 20 bucks from washing my dad’s car (or whatever else he might need done around the house), I could walk out with an armful of records with no care about  whether they were new or used. It was glorious!

I felt a little bit of that today. The debut album from prog-rock pioneers U.K. for 10 bucks? I’ll take it. Aurora by Jean-Luc Ponty on vinyl for a dollar? No brainer. Even the CDs were cheap: Robert Plant Pictures at Eleven, $3, and Sly and The Family Stone Greatest Hits for five bucks. I admit I dropped a few dollars for a Japanese import of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway by Genesis, but I’ve been looking for that one for a while and trolling for it on eBay is a drag. 

This is a facet of vinyl’s popularity that doesn’t show up in the sales reports because there’s no way to track it, although I imagine it could be done to some extent for purchases that have a bar code. The artist receives nothing from sales on the secondary market, but it’s a boon for the music lover because you might stumble across a sidewalk sale or drop into a Goodwill store and find some gems without the need to break the bank. 

And that’s always a win!