anchoress away

Catherine Anne Davies on the ethics of vinyl production

- Catherine Anne Davies

The environmental ethics of vinyl manufacturing in the midst of a climate crisis are something of a hot topic right now (if you'll excuse the pun...).

Global megastars such as Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift are seemingly trading verbal punches over just who, what, and how much each are doing to counter the huge carbon footprints involved in touring, manufacturing and the general shenanigans of being a pop star in the 21st century.

And vinyl has been the watchword on everyone's lips. Not least because, while revenues are falling everywhere for your average band/artist, the demand for vinyl has, conversely, seen a huge explosion. Despite the fact that streaming still made up 4/5ths of the total consumption of music in 2023, according to the Official Charts, around 5.9 million vinyl records were sold in the UK - a whopping 11.7 per cent rise on the previous year. This makes it a lucrative market for musicians in a landscape otherwise dominated by the measly spoils of Spotify, where a single stream will net you a paltry £0.04 (and that's before the record company has taken its cut...).

Upping the vinyl sales ante in 2024 we've already had Swift's recent offering, The Tortured Poets Department, accumulating first week vinyl sales in excess of 800,000, with the album available in four different vinyl variants.

Eilish seemed to be taking aim at Swift and her ilk with her recent comments in a Billboard interview [see our news pages, RC 558-Ed] that blasted "some of the biggest artists in the world making fucking 40 different vinyl packages... just to get you to keep buying more. It's so wasteful".