Nielsen Music released their mid-year charts today, and Taylor Swift’s 1989 is unsurprisingly the year’s best-selling album, with 1.33 million in pure album sales and 2.01 million in equivalent album units. What may be a little more surprising is that 1989 has also been the best-selling vinyl record of the year so far too.
Swift’s album sold 34,000 vinyl records since its release in December; the closest album to Swift’s is Sufjan Stevens’ Carrie & Lowell, which sold 32,000. Vinyl sales only made up about 2.5 percent of Swift’s total album sales so far, while vinyl makes up about 30 percent of Stevens’ total album sales. It’s hard to imagine Swift’s fans listening to the album on vinyl, but her fans will buy anything she puts out, so maybe it makes sense.
Vinyl sales have increased 38.4 percent in 2015 from this time last year, selling a total of 5.6 million records so far. Take a look at the top 10 best-selling albums of 2015 below:
1. Taylor Swift – 1989 (34,000)
2. Sufjan Stevens – Carrie & Lowell (32,000)
3. Arctic Monkeys – AM (27,000)
4. Alabama Shakes – Sound & Color (26,000)
5. Miles Davis – Kind of Blue (23,000)
6. Sam Smith – In The Lonely Hour (23,000)
7. Pink Floyd – Dark Side of the Moon (23,000)
8. Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack (22,000)
9. Father John Misty – I Love You, Honeybear (22,000)
10. Hozier – Hozier (21,000)
(Via Stereogum)
