The Taylor Swift Effect: US vinyl sales exceed $1 billion for the first time since 1983 | Vinyl

For the first time in more than four decades, vinyl sales in the United States exceeded $1 billion in annual revenue.

Vinyl purchases will reach $1.04 billion in 2025, according to a new report from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) published on March 16. It marks the 19th consecutive year of growth for the format that was once considered a niche interest.

Vinyl sales were 46.8 million in 2025, up 7.9% from 2024 sales of 43.4 million. CD sales brought in less than a third of vinyl’s profits at $312.4 million, while other physical formats such as cassette tapes brought in $25.8 million.

Vinyl’s explosive resurgence has been driven by Taylor Swift’s clever marketing of the format as a collectible. Her 2025 album The Life of a Showgirl was the best-selling vinyl release last year, with vinyl sales alone reaching 1.6 million.

Swift has released a total of eight vinyl variants of The Life of a Showgirl with alternate cover artwork and LP colors. Some editions came with additional material from Swift, such as an exclusive Target that came with never-before-seen photos, a double-sided poster, as well as a poem written by Swift. Other versions were only available for 48 hours through Swift’s online store.

In addition to vinyl, Swift’s embrace of CD, cassette, and digital download formats helped The Life of a Showgirl break music records upon its release. The singer has released no less than 34 different versions of the album in total. The album achieved 4.002 million sales in the United States in its opening week, the highest first-week sales ever recorded for an album. Of this number, vinyl sales were 1.3 million.

The top three in terms of vinyl sales last year include: Sabrina Carpenter, who sold 292,000 copies of her album Man’s Best Friend, and Kendrick Lamar, who moved 272,000 copies of his Grammy-winning album GNX. In fourth place came Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet with sales of 262,000 copies, followed by Billie Eilish with sales of 192,000 copies of her 2024 LP Hit Me Hard and Soft.

Classic pop albums have also proven to be a consistently popular choice for vinyl purchases, with Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors and Michael Jackson’s Thriller also making the top ten in vinyl sales in the United States.

Vinyl represented less than 10% of U.S. music sales last year, with its $1 billion in revenue dwarfing the industry’s $9.5 billion in revenue from streaming.

American consumers bought about 48.5 million copies of new vinyl releases (RIAA report does not include used vinyl sales). This number consists largely of traditional LP and EP releases. By contrast, CDs sold 29.5 million units.

Swift’s dominance of vinyl has drawn criticism from some music fans and commentators. In a January video titled “Taylor Swift Is Still Ruining Vinyl,” YouTube personality Anthony Fantano asked: “Once you release eight different vinyl versions of your new album, what market demand are you really going to satisfy at that point?”

“Are you really giving your fans what they want, or are you just exploiting a very weird monopoly you have on a certain market of fans who will shell out money for virtually anything you drop?”

Vinyl pressings of Eilish’s latest album were made using 100% recycled vinyl, while Coldplay’s 2024 album Moon Music was pressed on records made from recycled plastic bottles.

“I can’t even express to you how wasteful that is,” Eilish said in a 2024 interview about unnecessary vinyl. “I find it really frustrating as someone who is trying hard to be sustainable and doing the best I can and trying to get everyone on my team involved in sustainability.

“Some of the biggest artists in the world make 40 different vinyl packs with something uniquely different just to keep you going to buy more.”