Discogs is the largest physical music database in the world. It is a user-built database of music with more the 6.5 million recordings and over 4 million artists.

With over 10 million items available anything from CD, Cassette, vinyl and MP3. Nielsen’s and Discogs have teamed up to release a Mid-Year Report that will tell the consumers exactly how much music is being purchased and in what format.

As Discogs has released with ‘Record’ breaking numbers..

• Vinyl continues to be the top seller on Discogs with over 3 million records sold this year so far.
• Cassettes make a resurgence selling more than 60,000 releases – an increase of 43% over last year.
• CD sales grew nearly 30% on Discogs, but dropped 12% according to Nielsen.
• Album sales overall were up on Discogs with catalog releases (older than 18 mo.) seeing the biggest increase over last year.
• Collectors looking to own a piece of history fueled David Bowies rise to the number 1 spot for most sold albums. While Prince has 3 releases appearing in the top 30, Purple Rain, Around The World In A Day, and Diamonds And Pearls.

Although Discogs might be a little bit biased, as they do act as a gigantic music store and there doesn’t seem to be a huge demand for retail music stores anymore.

It is quite interesting that physical formats seem to be making a come back especially Vinyl.

What a time to be alive!