As I said in the above post, vinyl sales are up the past few years, growing by 12 percent in 2018. Each physical sale is worth significantly more than a stream, so these numbers are what help keep genres like rock and pop so much closer to hip hop in the total album consumption charts.

Even though both charts focus on albums, the vinyl sales give a better representation of people buying the album for the full track list instead of just one song. When streamed, the repeated listening of one song can add up to a full album sale. In metrics like this, the consumer must purchase the full album first. With vinyl specifically, it’s a real pain to try to listen to just one song.

When looking at the individual albums, one will notice that many of the albums are much older than those we normally see topping any kind of album charts. This could be based on a couple of factors. One, the consumer base could be noticeably older than those influencing the total sales charts. Two, there’s more of a commitment to buying a record than there is to stream an album. This could lead to a longer vetting process by the purchaser and make them less likely to buy a new release, and instead push them toward a record that they have known they like for years.