U.S. recorded-music wholesale revenue hit a record $11.5 billion in 2025, the RIAA said in its year-end report. Streaming still pays the industry. Vinyl still pays the feeling. [1]
Luminate's first-half 2026 tally is the sharper picture. CD sales jumped 16 percent. Vinyl growth lagged that sprint. The RIAA's 2025 full year still had vinyl larger in both units and money: 46.8 million units and $1.043 billion wholesale against CDs' 29.5 million units and $312.4 million. Target and Walmart now take about 30 percent of physical sales, helped by alternate covers and photocards. [2]
That is not conquest of the stream. It is conquest of the physical aisle. Streaming rose 9.8 percent globally to 2.8 trillion on-demand audio plays in the first half. U.S. streams were up 4.8 percent to 732.7 billion. Vinyl remains a high-margin souvenir next to that firehose. [2]
Record Store Day on April 18 still moves a million-album week. Catalog rock still outsells hip-hop and Latin on wax relative to their stream share. The pressing plant, not the algorithm, is the bottleneck. [2][3]
X talks as if the turntable beat Spotify. The ledger says Spotify funds the business and the turntable funds the identity. Artists who time a vinyl drop to a streaming campaign sell through a first pressing faster. The formats are not enemies. One is the radio. The other is the object you can hold when the license expires. [3]
A single LP still costs several dollars to press before anyone takes a margin. That is why a $30 record feels like a luxury and a stream feels like air. Hardware makers have even wandered back to CD transports. Ownership is having a second act in more than one plastic. [2]
The headline "conquered streaming" is a Reader Headline we inherited and then had to argue with. Vinyl did not conquer the stream. It conquered the idea that music is only a rental. That is enough for a culture desk. It is not enough for a victory lap.
Indie shops in the United States still number something like 1,400 to 1,600. They are the last analog algorithm: a clerk, a bin, a conversation. Streaming cannot copy that and does not need to. It already won the hours. Vinyl won the shelf. [3]
Beaumont will keep buying records she already streams. That hypocrisy is the market. The revival is not a replacement. It is a souvenir industry that accidentally rebuilt a format. Treat it as culture, not as a coup.
Collectors buying three editions of the same album are not audiophiles. They are the reason Walmart cares. The revival includes that kitsch. Pretending otherwise is liner-note nostalgia. The stream still pays the rent. The record pays the ritual. Both can be true on the same kitchen counter, which is where most of these records actually live after Record Store Day. [2]
-- CAMILLE BEAUMONT, Los Angeles