Radiohead’s ‘In Rainbows’ tops 2008 vinyl chart
While 2008 was all about how Radiohead shook the music industry, embracing internet downloads, the band closed the year on top of the vinyl charts.
Radiohead’s seventh album ‘In Rainbows’ was officially released in the USA on January 1st, 2008. Today, exactly a year later, Nielsen Soundscan released the sales reports over the past year. Radiohead played no role of importance in the CD or even digital charts. But, the band sold 25,800 vinyl copies of ‘In Rainbows‘, which makes it the top selling vinyl recording in the US. Runner-up is the Beatles’ ‘Abbey Road’ (16,500), followed by ‘Chinese Democracy’ (13,600) by Guns ‘N Roses. And we find Radiohead’s 1997 album ‘OK Computer‘ at number 10 with 9,300 copies sold, which made Radiohead the best selling artist on vinyl in 2008 with 61,200 copies sold, taking a big lead over The Beatles (39,500) and Metallica (20,400).
2008 marked a record breaking year for vinyl sales with a total of 1.88 million copies sold, a growth of 89% compared to 2007. More than 2 out of every 3 vinyl albums were purchased at an independent music store during the year
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Make A Comment: ( 16 so far )
16 Responses to “Radiohead’s ‘In Rainbows’ tops 2008 vinyl chart”
Jacob
January 1st, 2009
WELL DONE
Heliport
January 1st, 2009
Thom would be very happy about this, he’s stated many times how he hates CD’s.
hollowgr4m
January 1st, 2009
Nobody cares about vinyl sales? Independent record stores sure do! Two out of three is awesome.
Besides, it’s nice to hear about *positive* 2008 sales figures for a change, whatever the product.
name (required)
January 1st, 2009
: )
Edwin
January 2nd, 2009
good to know I could contribute
mike
January 2nd, 2009
So, are there any figures on how many copies IR sold in total in the US? How far is it going from going platinum (because it already went gold a couple of weeks after release)?
Mondegreen
January 2nd, 2009
link?????
lily
January 2nd, 2009
LP8
Tigergrass
January 2nd, 2009
that’s awesome. I remember a few years back the local record stores were only frequented by music nerds like myself. It makes me very happy to see vinyl coming back… especially with Radiohead leading the way…
kyle
January 4th, 2009
Are the discbox figures included? It was out prior to the 1st of January…
Clayton
January 6th, 2009
[...] the U.S, 1.88 million vinyl records were sold in 2008. That’s a 89% increase from 2007. Not too shabby. Most of the sales were from independent [...]
[...] Tampoco es una gran novedad que, mientras las grandes discográficas parece que no sepan cómo modernizar la industria, el regreso del vinilo como soporte se va consolidando poco a poco, sobre todo para melómanos en general, coleccionistas o fetichistas varios. Incluso se llegan a dar casos curiosos como que el In Rainbows de Radiohead, el que trasladó el antiguo concepto de pagar “la voluntad” a los que venden clínex en el metro o lavan parabrisas en los semáforos al mundo de las descargas de mp3, fue el álbum en vinilo que más se vendió en 2008. [...]
Animal Collective lo petan (en vinilo) « indiespot
January 9th, 2009
[...] Radiohead’s fans are big buyers of vinyl – last year’s In Rainbows was the biggest selling vinyl album of 2008, selling 25,800 copies in the [...]
Radiohead singles reissued on vinyl « Vinyltoob
January 13th, 2009
audio purists unite!
jojo
February 13th, 2009
[...] Radiohead Pearl Jam Elvis Costello Think Fast! Records Rolling Stone: Vinyl Sales almost double in 2008. [...]

That’s pretty cool. Nobody really cares
about vinyl sales, but I still found it
very interesting.