Vinyl’s vexing shortage
Artists and record stores are frustrated as rising popularity of format and supply-chain issues lead to production delays
Vinyl is in vogue. From Adele and Taylor Swift, to ABBA and Ed Sheeran, music artists around the world are capitalizing on the vinyl revival as they release albums ahead of the holiday season. But some local indie artists and record stores are calling foul.
Reports of Adele ordering 500,000 pressings of her new album “30” has led one British record store to boycott the artist’s album.
Skeleton Records in northwestern England claims that the English singer-songwriter is pushing aside local indie artists and smaller record labels by taking up a large portion of the global vinyl production.
“The boycott is in support of independent artists who are currently unable to get their records pressed due to monopolization of the pressing plants,” the vinyl store wrote in a tweet on Nov. 7. “We encourage other indie shops to do the same.”
Adele isn’t the only artist pushing out vinyl. Taylor Swift’s latest studio album “Red (Taylor’s Version),” a re-recording of her 2012 album of the same name, features a whopping 30 songs recorded on four vinyl discs.
But these major artists aren’t solely responsible. Adele’s 500,000 records, for example, only amount to approximately 0.3 per cent of the total vinyl units produced in 2021, according to Billboard.
So what, then, is causing the global vinyl shortage? Canadian radio broadcaster and music writer Alan Cross says a variety of factors are at play.
A fire last year at the industry’s primary distributor of vinyl lacquer, one of only two places in the world that supplies the lacquer used to make master plates, combined with the increased demand for polyvinyl chloride (PVC) — a synthetic plastic used to make everything from takeout containers, pipes, cling wrap, and vinyl records — has led to month-long backlogs at vinyl pressing facilities.
With COVID-19 came a surge in plastic consumption as restaurants closed, lockdowns continued, and many businesses pivoted to takeout in order to keep up with operational costs.
As the holidays approach — a time when record labels and artists are scrambling to release their albums in time for the gift-giving season — these massive supply chain issues are growing particularly pronounced.
Billboard is reporting that artists can expect to wait six to eight months from the time their order is placed until the vinyl is pressed.
At Burlington, Ont.’s Precision Record Pressing, one of the largest vinyl pressing plants in North America, the turnaround time for record pressings has steadily increased from eight weeks to 22 weeks over the past four years.
Paul Miller, vice-president of sales at the manufacturing company, attributes the delay to increased demand, especially over the past year.
Vinyl record sales soared 29 per cent during the pandemic, according to the Record Industry Association of America. And while the pandemic sidelined many musicians with cancelled concerts and shuttered live venues, music consumption remained strong and many industry experts expect renewed interest in vinyl will only continue to grow.
According to market research company IMARC, the global vinyl record market was valued at $1.3 billion (U.S.) in 2020. In Canada, although total album sales have declined, vinyl record sales have increased a staggering 53 per cent in the first six months of 2021 compared to the same time last year, according to Billboard and MRC Data.
Vinyl still only accounts for about a quarter of all album sales in the U.S., including digital albums.
MRC Data’s year-end report for 2020 indicates that vinyl accounts for 27 per cent of all album sales in the U.S., including digital album sales. However, it only accounts for 3.6 per cent of album-equivalent music consumption, which factors in digital downloads of single tracks and audio streaming.
Cross attributes the vinyl revival to a new generation of listeners discovering the analog system.
“Generation Z, the all-digital generation, has discovered vinyl as an alternative to the virtual stuff they are streaming,” he said. “The fact that vinyl is a tactile experience — a physical experience of holding the music in your hand — is what is attracting them to it.”
In the U.S., vinyl record sales eclipsed CD sales in 2020 for the first time in 34 years.
But the current vinyl pressing capacity cannot keep up with demand, according to Catherine Moore, a professor of music at the University of Toronto. She says vinyl manufacturing plants began to shut down once CDs were introduced in the 1980s.
Following the resurgence of vinyl in the late 2000s, Moore suggests there has not been the necessary increase in manufacturing capacity to meet current demands. According to Billboard, pressing plants around the world can produce about 160 million records a year, but current demand is approximately double that figure.
Despite capacity shortages, Miller says Precision Record Pressing has tried to ensure that both indie labels and major artists can have their records pressed in an equitable manner.
“We have a structured amount of capacity that we put aside for developing artists and labels so that they continue to have access to vinyl pressing in an environment where it’s becoming virtually impossible to get … while also marking sure all our larger artists get the capacity they need,” he said.
But this isn’t always the case at other pressing plants. Cross says smaller labels and indie artists are often sidelined due to these bulk pressing orders by major labels and artists.
“What they would do is put Adele at the front of the line simply because there’s going to be such a huge demand for this record,” he noted. “All other records will be late getting to market at the expense of these Adele records.”
Indie artists, however, aren’t the only ones bearing the brunt of this vinyl shortage. In Canada, the supply issues are making it difficult for independent record stores to stock their shelves in time for the holidays.
Chris Evers, a manager of the record store Sonic Boom in Toronto, says shelf staples such as Fleetwood Mac’s magnum opus “Rumours” are now hard to come by.
“The supply here is just, it’s a little bit screwed up, just because of the major labels,” he said. “The major Canadian labels are sort of the little brother to their American counterparts, so they’re continually fighting to get stock up here.”
Andrew Koppel, co-owner of Kops Records, also feels that independent record stores are being pushed aside by larger distributors. It has become increasingly difficult for him to procure new releases for his three stores in Toronto and Oshawa.
“Because Canada is a secondary market, we get muscled out by the U.S.,” he said.
Koppel notes that starting in the mid-2010s, record labels began signing exclusive deals with large corporations such as Target, Amazon and Walmart to distribute their albums, leaving many independent retailers such as Kops Records and Sonic Boom without any chance of stocking their stores with those albums.
Swift’s latest album, for example, wasn’t distributed to Canada in vinyl when it was released on Friday, according to Koppel.
“If feels like we’re letting our customers down,” he said.
“How do you explain to someone that we don’t have something because of all of these different supply chain factors and the fact that we’re kind of just a drop in the bucket compared to some of the larger places?”
The lack of supply and high demand for vinyl records have led to skyrocketing prices. Swift’s latest album, for example, will leave you $49.99 (U.S.) in the red if you purchase it on vinyl. That’s three times more expensive than the digital album.
The price of her album, however, pales in comparison to The Tragically Hip’s recent 30th anniversary box set, which is going for a whopping $225.
Experts say these ballooning prices and vinyl shortages will continue until the industry decides to invest in more vinyl pressing capacity.
For now, Canadian indie artists and record stores will have to continue pushing to keep a foot in the door of an ever-crowded vinyl frontier.