Record sales: Amazon claims UK vinyl boost as Daft Punk becomes its top-seller of all time

With MiniDiscs and cassettes long consigned to the history books, and CDs making a hasty exit, the writing must finally be on the wall for vinyl, right? Wrong.

Amazon has reported that UK record sales have grown by more than 100% in 2013 compared to last year, though admittedly the e-commerce giant doesn’t divulge specific figures.

According to Amazon, Daft Punk’s ‘Random Access Memories’ – released just a few months ago – has become its best-selling vinyl since the dark days of 1999 when Amazon.co.uk first launched its Music Store. That’s really not bad going at all.

Other albums in the top twenty vinyl chart since 1999 include Amy Winehouse, Arctic Monkeys and Arcade Fire, as well as Pink Floyd, Radiohead and David Bowie.

The top 20 vinyl best-sellers on Amazon.co.uk since 1999 are as follows:

1.       Daft Punk, Random Access Memories
2.       Adele, 21
3.       Amy Winehouse, Back to Black
4.       David Bowie, The Next Day
5.       Pink Floyd, The Dark Side of the Moon
6.       David Bowie, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders from Mars
7.       Arctic Monkeys, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
8.       Pink Floyd, The Dark Side of the Moon (30th Anniversary Edition)
9.       Arcade Fire, The Suburbs
10.    The Beatles, Love Me Do (50th Anniversary Limited Edition 7” Single)
11.   Radiohead, In Rainbows
12.   Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here
13.   Bon Iver, For Emma Forever Ago
14.   Radiohead, Ok Computer
15.   Micah P. Hinson, Micah P. Hinson & The Gospel of Progress…
16.   PJ Harvey, Let England Shake
17.   Kate Bush, 50 Words for Snow
18.   Alt-J, An Awesome Wave
19.   The White Stripes, Elephant
20.   The xx, xx

And the top 20 vinyl best-sellers on Amazon.co.uk in 2013 to date are:

1.       Daft Punk, Random Access Memories
2.       David Bowie, The Next Day
3.       Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Push the Sky Away
4.       Black Sabbath, 13
5.       Queens of the Stone Age, Like Clockwork
6.       Atoms for Peace, Amok
7.       Vampire Weekend, Modern Vampires of the City
8.       Fleetwood Mac, Rumours
9.       Alt-J, An Awesome Wave
10.   Led Zeppelin, Celebration Day
11.   Iron Maiden, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
12.   Iron Maiden, Somewhere in Time
13.   Iron Maiden, Powerslave
14.   Boards of Canada, Tomorrow’s Harvest
15.   Pink Floyd, The Dark Side of the Moon
16.   John Coltrane, Blue Train
17.   National, Trouble Will Find Me
18.   Iron Maiden, Live After Death
19.   Iron Maiden, Maiden England ‘88
20.   Nick Drake, Bryter Layter

“Vinyl has traditionally been the music enthusiast’s format of choice,” says Xavier Garambois, Vice-President, European Consumer Business at Amazon. “It’s great to see so many people rediscovering a format that holds such an important place in music history. We expect to see sales of vinyl continue to flourish with Amazon AutoRip, helping introduce new generations to this timeless format whilst giving our customers the convenience and portability of digital music.”

Meanwhile, check out this funky infographic that outlines what people have been listening to on vinyl, and how sales have been on the rise over the past 8 years.