The revenue for vinyl records in Canada has more than quadrupled over the past decade and businesses associated with vinyl in Metro Vancouver say they’re benefitting from the demand.

The data, compiled by Music Canada based on a March 18 report from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, shows revenue is booming.

It comes after years of upward growth that began during the COVID-19 pandemic, with pop stars like Taylor Swift driving renewed interest in the vinyl format in recent years.

Vinyl store operators say that, increasingly, younger generations are getting in on the act — and even leading to a spike in interest for CD collection.

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Meanwhile, a Burnaby-based record pressing plant owner said he suspects the numbers of vinyl sales are actually underreported in Canada.

“I think those numbers are low because those will be counting records … that have barcodes on them. But a huge amount of the records pressed in the world don’t go through that system,” said Billy Bones, the owner of Clampdown Records.

“They go to a band that goes on tour, that sells their record, that never enters into the count,” he added. “So I don’t know if they’re adjusting for that, but I think the industry is much better than the numbers stated.”

Bones said he doubts there’s any other technology that nearly went away, but came back, the way that vinyl records have.

Clampdown presses around 1,000 records a day.

The business, he adds, relies on U.S.-based suppliers and customers. Canada doesn’t have a domestic polyvinyl chloride (PVC) importer, Bones said, so it relies on U.S. suppliers.

In addition, the press sells 50 to 70 per cent of its records to customers south of the border.

“It’s kind of a funny time with geopolitics being what they are, and we’re still fairly dependent on Americans buying records.”

Youth flock to record shop

At Vancouver’s Neptoon Records store, manager Ben Frith said vinyl record sales were “nonstop” and growing every year.

“Twenty years ago, 30 years ago, it was a very small, specific demographic,” he said of vinyl collectors.

“Now there is no average customer for us. It is every age, gender, race. There is absolutely no barrier.”

Frith attributed the continued growth of vinyl to consumers’ desire to actually own their music, experience better sound quality and better support artists who are otherwise given pennies on the dollar by streaming services.

“The younger generation is probably the fastest-expanding market — whether it be that they’re getting into vinyl, or more recently, quite a bit into CDs, which is something I don’t think any of us saw coming,” he said.

Rob Frith, Ben’s father, said that when he first started the store in the 1980s, the clientele was primarily men — with the record store owner saying that if their girlfriends or wives accompanied his clients, they would stand by the door and impatiently check their watches.

But now, he said, he’s heartened to see a more diverse clientele.

“It’s surprising. I keep waiting for the bubble to burst, but … it doesn’t seem like it’s going to,” he said.