For first time in decades, vinyl record sales surpass CDs and DVDs in Brazil

(29 Apr 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - 19 April 2024
1. Shelves and showcase table of used vinyl records at a store
2. Vinyl record playing
3. Various of vinyl store owner Mustafa Aissa handling vinyl records
4. Aissa organizing vinyl records
5. Set up of Aissa
6. SOUNDBITE (Portuguese) Mustafa Baba Aissa, 53 years old, vinyl store owner:
“It has been really good. I started selling (records) out of need, and it was a success; it only grew. I went to fairs and all, I saw the big interest of the people in buying records, in Brazil and abroad."
7. Music producer and collector Carlos Savalla walking through a corridor of his record collection
8. Savalla picking up vinyl records from his collection
9. Savalla showing antique recording and mixing tools
10. SOUNDBITE (Portuguese) Carlos Savalla, music producer and collector:
“When you reduce the price tag (of new vinyl players), the medium will sell. You have where to play it (vinyl record). Before, you had nowhere to buy a vinyl player. Now they began making it again."
11. Pan right of record collection
12. Vinyl records on a shelf
13. SOUNDBITE (Portuguese) Carlos Savalla, music producer and collector:
“Like I told you, it’s addictive. You bought a used record for 30, 40, 50 (reais), and when an artist you love releases a new record, you think-wow, it’s on a vinyl record now. And your eyes shine. So you save up money to buy it.”
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Belford Roxo, Brazil - 16 April 2024
14. Various of process of creating the master disk for producing vinyl records
15. Various of vinyl record-pressing machine
16. Vinyl record factory worker checking on a newly pressed product
STORYLINE:
Last year, for the first time in decades, vinyl records outsold CDs and DVDs in Brazil, according to an association of the country's largest record companies.
Revenue doubled to 11 million reais ($2.2 million) compared to the previous year, and was more than 15 times higher than in 2019, Pro-Musica said.
But those figures include only new releases, as second-hand sales are impossible to track.
“It has been really good. I started selling (records) out of need, and it was a success; it only grew. I went to fairs and all, I saw the big interest of the people in buying records, in Brazil and abroad," said vinyl store owner Mustafa Baba Aissa.
There are thousands of traders and buyers on websites and Facebook groups, while local aficionados and foreign hunters scour fairs, flea markets, and used-record shops in search of the samba, bossa nova, Tropicalismo, and Brazilian Popular Music records to complete their collection.
Those newly nostalgic for the bygone analog era are piling in, too.
“When you reduce the price tag (of new vinyl players), the medium will sell," said music producer and collector Carlos Savalla.
"Before, you had nowhere to buy a vinyl player. Now they began making it again," Savalla said, standing amid the stacks of his Rio hoard, which holds more than 60,000 records.
Vinyl's comeback in Brazil follows a global trend over the last 15 years.
In the U.S., revenue hit $1.4 billion in 2023 and surpassed CDs and DVDs for the second year running, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.
Renewed American interest is mostly attributed to Taylor Swift; her "Midnights" album, released in 2022, became the first major album release to have its vinyl sales top CDs since 1987.
In Brazil, surging interest isn't due to top-streamed artists, who aren't even releasing vinyls, according to Marcelo Fróes, a music journalist and researcher.
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