In April 2014, an unreleased Aphex Twin album from two decades earlier turned up on Discogs, a crowdsourced music database and marketplace favored among record collectors. The price was an eye-popping $13,500. The sale of the record, one of reputedly five extant test pressings of the pioneering electronic musician’s Caustic Window LP, led to a funding campaign that finally brought a high-quality digital version of the record to a wider audience.
The saga helped punctuate the rise of Discogs, which has become something of a cross between Wikipedia and Amazon or eBay for the most passionate fans of physical music formats. Founded in November 2000 by then-Intel software engineer Kevin Lewandowski to catalog the dance music he enjoyed as a fan, the Oregon-based website recently celebrated its 15th birthday. To celebrate, Discogs has started releasing some of the proprietary information it has collected over the years about the music we trade and collect. Also today, Discogs is announcing that its new mobile app, currently in beta testing, will be available to all iOs users on February 29 via the Apple Store.
Sales in the Discogs marketplace rose 31% last year to about 6.6 million units, according to a 2015 year-in-review report provided exclusively to Pitchfork. That includes roughly 5.4 million vinyl records, an increase of 31% over 2014. CDs, which recently earned a spirited defense in Rolling Stone, got the biggest bump, climbing 38% to 1.1 million, followed by the cassette, which advanced 37% to 90,173 units sold. Cassettes also saw the fastest growth in terms of new listings on Discogs, increasing almost 39% from 2014 with more than 93,000 releases added to the database in 2015. (It’s worth noting Discogs’ data is proprietary and couldn’t be independently verified.)
By comparison, sales of new vinyl albums rose 30% last year to 11.9 million copies, according to Nielsen Music, versus an 11% decline for CDs to less than 126 million copies. (Nielsen’s annual report didn’t break out sales of cassettes.)
Overall, more than $95 million in sales took place on the Discogs marketplace last year, according to the company.
Discogs also shared some quirkier stats. A tough-to-find edition of hardcore band Judge’s Chung King Can Suck It, which in March became the most expensive record ever sold on the site when it went for $5,958.36, ended the year still in the top spot. A close second came in June, when William Powell’s Northern Soul rarity "Heartache Souvenirs" sold for $5,449, according to the report. Also among the priciest Discogs items purchased is a copy of the Smiths’ first single, "Hand in Glove," with a negative version of the original sleeve; only five copies were reputedly made, and this one sold in November for more than $3,000.
The most collected titles overall on Discogs last year included some of the best-selling records of all time. Leading the way was Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, followed by Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Beyond that, though, were more recent, vinyl-friendly releases such as Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, Jack White’s Lazaretto, and Sufjan Stevens’ Carrie & Lowell. These records were some of the best-selling vinyl releases of the last few years overall, so in this sense Discogs sales trends mirror the rest of the industry.
Based on Discogs data as of November, which the company didn’t update for this year-in-review report, the average price for a vinyl record on Discogs in 2015 was $14.55. CDs averaged $11.70, with cassettes at a notably lofty $12.18. The price for vinyl was reportedly the site’s highest since it began tracking data in 2005.
For context, the Discogs marketplace lists 24 million items, versus nearly 11 million for eBay's music section, according to the New York Times in December. However, Discogs’ reported 3 million registered users trail eBay’s 159 million active buyers, who accounted for $19.6 billion in transactions in just the third quarter, based on eBay’s data. Clearly, though, music is only one tiny fraction of the merchandise available on eBay.
Below, check out Discogs’ graphical representation of its year-end report, and see the lists of the top 30 most-collected of last year as well as the top 10 most expensive.
Most Collected Master Releases
1. Fleetwood Mac, Rumours
2. Michael Jackson, Thriller
3. Daft Punk, Random Access Memories
4. Jack White, Lazaretto
5. The White Stripes, Get Behind Me Satan
6. Pink Floyd, The Dark Side of the Moon
7. Sufjan Stevens, Carrie & Lowell
8. Tame Impala, Currents
9. Aphex Twin, Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments Pt 2 (EP)
10. Run the Jewels, "Bust No Moves"
11. Björk, Vulnicura
12. Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress
13. Brand New, Deja Entendu
14. D’Angelo and the Vanguard, Black Messiah
15. Jamie xx, In Colour
16. Aphex Twin, Syro
17. Wilco, A.M.
18. Aphex Twin, MARCHROMT 30a EDIT 2b 96
19. Hot Chip, In Our Heads
20. Loretta Lynn, Van Lear Rose
21. Menomena, Friends & Foe
22. Torres, Sprinter
23. Blur, The Magic Whip
24. Various Artists, The Darjeeling Limited (Original Soundtrack)
25. Modest Mouse, Stranger to Ourselves
26. The Upsetters, Super Ape
27. Death Grips, The Powers That B
28. The White Stripes, Under Amazonian Lights
29. Levon Vincent, Levon Vincent
30. Pépé Bradock, Deep Burnt Edits
Most Expensive Releases Sold
1. Judge, Chung King Can Suck It ($6048)
2. William Powell, "Heartache Souvenirs" / "Chicken Shack" ($5449)
3. Analogy, Analogy ($3803)
4. The Golden Earrings, "Lonely Every Day" ($3388)
5. The Golden Earrings, "Lonely Every Day" ($3376)
6. The Smiths, "Hand in Glove" ($3119)
7. The Contents Are, Through You ($3000)
8. The Damned, Damned Damned Damned ($2853)
9. Frankie Beverlie and the Butlers, Because of My Heart ($2802)
10. Ricardo Marrero & the Group, A Taste ($2647)
