Manufacturers struggle to keep pace with vinyl record demand

The arrival of the compact disc nearly killed off record albums, with vinyl pressing machines sold, scrapped and dismantled by major record labels.

Four decades later, with resuscitated record album sales producing double-digit annual growth, manufacturers are rapidly rebuilding an industry to keep pace with sales that reached $1 billion last year.

Dozens of record-pressing factories have been built to try to meet demand in North America, and it's still not enough.

The industry "has found a new gear, and is accelerating at a new pace,'' said Mark Michaels, CEO and chairman of United Record Pressing, the nation's largest record producer, in Nashville, Tennessee.

Demand for vinyl records has been growing in double-digits for more than a decade and mass merchandisers like Target were bolstering their selection of albums just as the pandemic provided a surprising jolt. With music tours canceled, and people stuck at home, music lovers began snapping up record albums at an even faster pace.

Record album sales revenue grew a whopping 61 percent in 2021, and reached $1 billion for the first time since the 1980s, far outpacing growth rates for paid music subscriptions and streaming services like Spotify and Pandora, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.

Record albums nearly spun into oblivion with sales overtaken by cassettes before the compact discs brushed both aside. Then came digital downloads and online piracy, Apple iPods and 99-cent downloads. Streaming services are now ubiquitous.

But nostalgic baby boomers who missed thumbing through record albums in their local record stores helped to fuel a vinyl resurgence that started about 15 years ago.

It coincided with the launch of Record Store...