You’ve heard the phrase “everything old is new again” and have undoubtedly seen plenty of examples firsthand.
Hunting for gorgeous vintage clothing is a popular pastime, antique furniture is a frequent feature of some of the most enviable homes we see on social media and who doesn’t occasionally yearn for the days of clunky Nokia phones with Snake as the only gaming option and Gameboys we could play Super Mario on?
When it comes to the retro trend, vinyl records and record players have never really gone out of style. There’s just something about the nostalgia and simplicity of popping on a record and letting it play instead of being overwhelmed with choice by way of a Spotify playlist.
On a recent trip up the east coast of NSW, my partner and I stayed at a quirky little hotel in Old Bar called the Boogie Woogie Beach House where each room is styled after a particular musician (being a huge Foo Fighters fan, I booked us the Dave Grohl suite). One of the standout features of the accommodation was the fact that every room came equipped with a record player and the hallways were lined with vinyl albums that guests could borrow for the duration of their stay (I immediately grabbed a Bowie album).
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The hotel was definitely onto something as vinyl records and turntables have seen a surge in demand in the last few years. In fact, according to Statista, in 2022 vinyl album sales in the United States have grown for the 16th consecutive year. Additionally, LP sales jumped by more than 50% in 2021, surpassing both digital and CD album sales.
If you’re curious as to which bands or musicians are the most popular when it comes to vinyl records, money.co.uk has found the answer for us. The site used the music database Discogs.com and analysed over 1.3 million listings to find which artist’s vinyls are the most owned around the world.
The research discovered that The Beatles (perhaps unsurprisingly) are the most popular artists to own on vinyl with 3,369,578 being in possession of one of the band’s records. Their most popular vinyl album is revealed to be Abbey Road, followed by Let It Be.
Pink Floyd came in second with 2,815,586 music lovers owning vinyl of the group and, my personal favourite, David Bowie, took out third place with 2,178,928 people owning his vinyl albums. Bowie’s most popular record is The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars.
See the full rankings below:
Money.co.uk also analysed the top 100 most owned vinyl albums on Discogs.com. Based on the number of people who own and want the album, they established a popularity score for each album.
Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here LP took out the spot when it comes to the most popular vinyl album of all time with a popularity score of 9.06 out of 10. Daft Punk‘s Random Access Memories came second on the list, while Pink Floyd appeared again in the number three and four spots for The Wall and Dark Side of the Moon.
Check out the top ten below:
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