MUMBAI: According to the new Official Charts Company data (UK) released by BPI, annual sales of vinyl records will soon cross one million; the first time since the Brit-pop era of the 90s. Indie Rock band Arctic Monkeys’ AM is currently dominating the LP sales of 2014, which is followed by Jack White’s ‘Lazaretto’.

The last time LP record sales crossed the one million mark was in 1996, with unit sales of 1,083,206. From 1997 onwards, LP witnessed falling figures in sales with 8, 17,018 units. By 2007, sales of LPs had fallen to 2, 05,292 units.

However, there was sharp rise in sales last year from 3, 88,768 units in 2012 to 7, 80, 674 units in 2013.

BPI PR head Lynne McDowell said, “Vinyl may once have been considered a by-product of a bygone era but it is now well and truly a flourishing format making a come-back in a digital age. In an increasingly-digitised world, it appears that music fans still crave a tangible product that gives them original artwork, high audio quality, and purity of sound.”

According to BPI, the sales were driven by “a strong combination of releases from new and established artistes which has helped to pave the way for record-breaking sales in the first nine months of this year.”

Three Led Zeppelin albums- ‘Led Zeppelin’, ‘Led Zeppelin 2’ and ‘Led Zeppelin 3’ are amongst the top ten LP albums for the year 2014 (Weeks 1-39 of 2014), followed by two albums from the Arctic Monkeys. Other LPs that made it to the top 10 are ‘Definitely Maybe’ by Oasis; ‘Royal Blood’ by Royal Blood; ‘The Stone Roses’ by Stone Roses; and ‘The Dark Side Of The Moon’ by Pink Floyd.

McDowell said, “From Record Store Day and Amazon Autorip to Listening Parties and initiatives like Secret 7, there have never been more opportunities explore the magic that vinyl can offer.” Figures show that the month of September was the busiest for LP sales.

According to the chart, 112 titles have sold more than 1,000 copies each on the format this year, which is double the numbers of titles sold in the first nine months of 2013.