Every year for the past decade, someone has written a piece predicting that the vinyl revival is about to peak and decline. Every year, the sales numbers prove them wrong. Vinyl sales in Australia grew again in 2025 — the ARIA figures showed another double-digit percentage increase — and all the indicators suggest 2026 will continue the trend.

I’ve been selling records through this entire revival. I opened this shop when vinyl was genuinely dead — when the major labels had stopped pressing, when you couldn’t give away turntables, when the entire format seemed destined for the same fate as 8-tracks and MiniDiscs. So I’ve watched this resurgence from the ground floor, and I’ve got some thoughts on why it’s still happening and whether it’ll last.

The Numbers

Global vinyl revenue hit approximately USD $2 billion in 2025, according to the IFPI global music report. In Australia, vinyl now accounts for roughly 8-10% of recorded music revenue. That’s small relative to streaming, which dominates at 80%+, but it’s significant in absolute terms and it’s been growing consistently for over a decade.

More importantly for people like me, the unit volumes tell a clearer story. Australians bought an estimated 1.8-2 million vinyl records in 2025. That’s up from about 1.5 million in 2023 and roughly 800,000 in 2019. The growth isn’t just inflation-driven price increases — people are buying more records.

Why It’s Not Just Nostalgia

The laziest explanation for the vinyl revival is nostalgia. Old blokes buying the records they grew up with. And sure, that’s part of it — I sell a lot of Fleetwood Mac and Pink Floyd to people in their 50s and 60s who are replacing the copies they wore out or lost in a divorce.

But nostalgia doesn’t explain why 25-year-olds are the fastest-growing demographic of vinyl buyers. These are people who grew up with streaming. They’ve never known a world where you had to physically own music. They’re choosing vinyl deliberately, not out of habit.

The reasons I hear most often from younger buyers:

Tangibility. In a world where most media consumption is invisible — streamed, cloud-based, algorithmically served — vinyl is physical. You hold it. You look at the artwork. You read the liner notes. You put it on a shelf. It exists in a way that a Spotify playlist doesn’t.

Intentional listening. Vinyl forces you to listen to an album as a complete work. You put on side A, you listen for 20 minutes, you flip to side B. There’s no skipping, no shuffling, no algorithm deciding what comes next. For a generation that’s exhausted by infinite choice, the constraints of vinyl are a feature, not a bug.

Ritual. The physical process of playing a record — pulling it from the sleeve, placing it on the platter, lowering the needle — is a ritual. It slows you down. It makes listening an activity rather than background noise. That appeals to people who are consciously trying to be more present and less screen-dependent.

Supporting artists. Young buyers understand that streaming pays artists almost nothing. Buying a record is a direct, tangible way to support a musician. I’ve had customers tell me they stream an album to discover it, then buy the vinyl to support it. That’s a complement, not a contradiction.

The Supply Side

The vinyl revival is also being sustained by supply-side improvements that have made the format more accessible.

More pressing plants. The global pressing plant shortage that caused 6-12 month delays a few years ago has eased. New plants have opened in Australia (Zenith in Melbourne), North America, and Europe. Lead times are still longer than they should be, but they’re manageable.

Better quality. Pressing quality has improved as the industry has reinvested in equipment and training. The dodgy pressings that plagued the early revival — warped records, surface noise, off-centre spindle holes — are less common (though not gone entirely).

Wider catalogue. Major labels and independents are pressing a broader range of titles than ever. It’s not just classic rock reissues anymore. Hip-hop, electronic, pop, indie, jazz, world music — virtually every genre is represented in vinyl releases. If you want it, it probably exists on wax.

Competitive pricing. While vinyl isn’t cheap — a new LP in Australia typically costs $40-$60 — it’s comparable to other physical media hobbies and cheaper than most collector-oriented markets. A $45 record that you’ll listen to for years is reasonable value for entertainment.

Will It Last?

I think so, and here’s my reasoning.

The vinyl revival has already outlasted the point where you’d expect a fad to collapse. Fads burn hot and die fast. Vinyl has been growing steadily for over a decade. That’s a structural shift in consumer behaviour, not a trend.

The demographics support it. The core buying demographic is broadening, not narrowing. When 20-somethings are building turntable setups and collecting records alongside 50-somethings, you’ve got a multi-generational market. That’s durable.

The format serves a need that streaming doesn’t. It’s not competing with streaming — it’s complementing it. People who buy vinyl almost universally also stream music. They’re not choosing one over the other; they’re using both for different purposes.

The Ceiling

That said, vinyl won’t keep growing at 15-20% per year forever. There’s a natural ceiling determined by the number of people who own turntables, the number of pressing plants in operation, and the shelf space in people’s homes.

My guess is that vinyl stabilises at around 10-12% of recorded music revenue in Australia within the next few years. Still a niche, still a small fraction of the total market, but a permanent and profitable one.

For people like me — record shop owners who’ve built businesses around physical music — that’s all we need. We don’t need vinyl to replace streaming. We just need it to sustain a community of music fans who value the format and the experience of buying records from a shop.

So far, so good.