Driven by Adele, vinyl and CD sales both went up in 2021, data says

Streaming has been dominating the music industry for years now, but 2021 saw a notable rise in sales of physical albums, thanks in part to the success of Adele's latest album.

Both CDs and vinyl experienced high sales in 2021, according to an annual year-end music data report from MRC Data, released this week.

Vinyl's resurgence in culture has been nothing short of a skyrocket. In 2011, vinyl only made up 1.7 per cent of physical sales of music, with CDs making up the rest. In just 10 years, that number rose to 50.4 per cent -- meaning that vinyls have now surpassed CDs as the most sold physical format for the first time since 1991, MRC reported.

"In recent years, I notice customers preferring to physically own music, other than streaming, usually in its best form (vinyl)," said Tobago Benito, owner of record store DBS Sounds, in MRC's data roundup.

He attributes that rise both to the inclusion of record players in movies and television, but also to the joy people get from digging for a certain vinyl in a record store, one that may "bring back wonderful memories," he said.