Rock Rules Music Industry Sales, Survey Shows

Vinyl records are making a comeback, the most active record buyers are now people over age 45 and rock rolled over all other formats in 1994 when it leaped to $4.2 billion in sales from its previous high of $3 billion, according to a demographic survey by the Recording Industry Association of America.

The study, which comes in the wake of an RIAA report that overall domestic music sales were up 20 percent last year to $12 billion, says the rock category rocketed from 30.2 percent of the business to 35.1 percent, mainly on the newfound strength of alternative music.

Country music dropped from 18.7 percent of the market to 16.3 percent, though increased overall sales and revenue drove it to an all-time high of $2 billion in sales. The genre has quadrupled in the past five years.

Country was not the only category that gave up market share to the rock genre. Pop was down from 11.9 percent to 10.3 percent, urban contemporary dropped a point and rap was off 1.3 percent.

Classical sounded a high note, growing to 3.7 percent from 3.3 percent, and soundtracks jumped to 1 percent from 0.7 percent behind “The Lion King,” “The Crow” and others.

Not surprisingly, the baby boomers are still very active record buyers, and people over 45 now account for 16.1 percent of the market, up from 14.8 percent. Spending by younger Americans stayed fairly static, though pre-teens dropped 0.7 percent and 25- to 29-year-olds and 40- to 44-year-olds each slipped 0.6 percent.

As for configurations, vinyl LPs grew from a negligible 0.3 percent to 0.8 percent, their first rise since CDs took over in the 1980s. But the mighty CD needn’t worry; it increased its dominance in the marketplace by jumping from 51 percent to 58 percent and has nearly doubled over the past five years.

The big loser is the cassette, which has lost ground every year for the past five years. This period, it slipped to 32 percent from 38 percent. Music videos also went down, dropping from 1.3 percent to 0.8 percent.

Most Americans still prefer to buy at record stores, though the number has dropped from 56 percent to 53 percent. The mass merchants in the “other store” category are soaring. In the past five years, the category has grown by a third. Record clubs grew 40 percent in the same period.

The South remains the biggest buyer of music with 34 percent, followed by the Midwest at 25 percent, the West at 22 percent and the Northeast at 19 percent. And men bought 53 percent of tunes sold.