Vinyl sales made more money than digital downloads last week

Vinyl sales racked up £2.4 million this past week, while downloads got £2.1 million, according to the ERA (Entertainment Retailers Association). The difference is vast when compared to the same period in 2015: vinyl scored a measly £1.2 million while downloads lurched towards £4.5 million.

Obviously there are a lot of factors in play here - Christmas gift shopping, is in full swing, streaming's continued gnawing of download sales is having a massive impact, and the fact a bunch of cracking LPs have made their way onto the shelves recently is surely helping boost sales. Factor in the fact a vinyl record costs considerably more than a digital one, and perhaps it's less surprising that the numbers have shifted so drastically.

The price difference is evident when stacked against total sales - 120,000 vinyl albums were bought last week, while download sales were more than double that at just under 300,000.

"This is yet further evidence of the ability of music fans to surprise us all," says the ERA's Kim Bayley. "It's not so long ago that the digital download was meant to be the future. Few would have predicted that an album format, first invented in 1948 and based on stamping a groove into a piece of plastic, would now be outselling it in 2016."