Vinyl Alliance Says “US Vinyl Sales Have Not Dropped 33% in 2024” as Luminate Dramatically Reverses Its Earlier Data — So What’s Going On Here?

Photo Credit: Patrick Perkins

Yesterday, Digital Music News reported on a severe year-over-year drop in US-based vinyl sales, based on data provided to Billboard by Luminate. Now, Luminate has clarified that sales have not dropped 33.3%, but are actually up 6.2%. So what the heck is going on here?

For nearly two decades, the music industry has been witnessing a steady comeback in vinyl record sales. But is that Cinderella story ending? Now, a confusing and conflicting slate of new data from Luminate, a leading music industry data company that powers Billboard’s charts, is throwing matters into doubt.

The fracas started with a weekly Billboard national music consumption report, which pointed to a 33.3% year-over-year drop in US-based vinyl sales, citing data provided by Luminate (formerly known as ‘MRC Data’ and the acquirer of Nielsen Music). The reason for the plunge, according to information shared with DMN by the Vinyl Alliance, is that Luminate has changed how it reports data on physical media sales this year by stripping out indie retailers and dramatically decreasing their resulting sales estimates.

According to the Alliance, the decision to exclude physical indie record retailers makes accurate year-over-year sales comparisons impossible because of the changed models.

The move apparently excludes more than 1,500 independent record stores in the United States, though it appears that Luminate’s estimates are no longer forming an accurate picture of total US-based physical sales.

Luminate isn’t sharing methodology details with DMN, though according to Alliance stats, Luminate tracked 47.3% fewer vinyl sales in January and February 2024 than the same months in 2023. That trend seems to have continued as the year has progressed, with Luminate receiving less actual data from independent retailers protesting the changes.

Here’s where this gets even more confusing: Luminate warned last year that its change in methodology would result in 2024’s vinyl sales numbers appearing to be significantly lower. Independent retailers have also been protesting Luminate’s data collection change, and some are no longer supplying any sales data to Luminate.

Yet despite those warnings, Luminate suddenly reversed its position this morning. Out of the blue, the company told DMN that YTD vinyl sales are actually up more than 6% on the year, though it’s not clear why they’re making the sudden and extreme change.

Are indie retailers back in the mix, or did Luminate mess up their broader sales estimates?

Already, there’s a big rift emerging. The Coalition of Independent Music Stores (CIMS), the Record Store Day board, and the Music Business Association have all launched an alternative chart to measure physical and vinyl sales. But Luminate now seems to be toggling between two different sales totals, with the vinyl ‘comeback’ suddenly in doubt.

Luminate previously extrapolated indie retailers’ physical album sales using a methodology that weighted actual sales by a smaller sample of independent stores. Billboard estimates suggest the previous methodology used weighted sales from around 70 accounts totaling 140 storefronts to represent the 1,500 to 2,000 independent retailers operating in the United States.

In January, Luminate began basing indie physical sales solely on actual retailer sales reports. But it appears that Luminate is no longer getting the big picture from these retailers due to the protest. The company is only receiving reports from around 33 accounts with 70 storefronts, according to Billboard estimates.

But there’s more than potentially bad accounting. “Luminate is penalizing serious, career-building, album-oriented artists on the charts,” Matador Records President Patrick Amory told Billboard earlier this year. “Their sales are not being counted. Their market share is being allotted to the majors. That is a disaster for independent musicians, labels, and retailers.”

The Vinyl Alliance was quick to correct what it calls ‘misinformation’ surrounding the drop in sales. “US vinyl sales through the first three quarters of 2024 are actually up 6.2%—as reported by Luminate’s readjusted model which accounts for the previously mentioned changes,” the Vinyl Alliance says.

Coalition of Independent Music Stores President & Record Store Day Co-Founder Andrea Paschal says retailers tried to work this out with Luminate before the methodology change, but were “ignored and left in the dark, often finding out by word of mouth after the fact about major decisions that affected our stores.”

Pascal says Luminate has made “decisions that continued to erode and marginalize the efforts and sales taking place in indie stores while also misrepresenting the contributions of these unique retailers to the overall tally of physical goods sold and to the music industry as a whole, because their reporting is based on what you would call a mere data-sample representation of existing independent record stores.”

Meanwhile, DMN is catching wind of a potential conflict between longtime partners Luminate and Billboard.

At press time, Billboard hasn’t adjusted their figures to reflect the 6.2% year-over-year readjustment. Instead, they’ve modified their original year-over-year decline to —32.6%. Both companies are owned by Penske Media Corporation.