In the lead up to and following Record Store Day, there are always countless articles, radio and tv packages, polls, vox pops and general discussion about vinyl. This year, however, there is a more tangible spin on the ‘return of vinyl’ as 2016 is set to crumble last year’s already record breaking figures for the sale of vinyl.

In January, we brought you the news of the expanding sales of LPs and turntables, in the first 3 months of 2016 however, 637,056 records have been sold in the UK. With 2.1 million discs of black wax selling in the whole of 2015, you can do the maths.

As some of you may have seen, ICM with the BBC ran a poll of vinyl junkies, it illustrates than not only can streaming sites and vinyl copies of music co-exist but that ad driven streaming sites have actually boosted vinyl sales.

Geoff Taylor, of the British Phonographic Industry explains: “Younger fans increasingly discover on digital but collect on vinyl. [They] appreciate the immediacy and convenience of services such as Spotify, Apple Music and Google Play to discover and enjoy a huge range of new music, but still want to own and collect albums by artists they truly love.”

45% of buyers listened to an EP or LP on a streaming site before forking out for the physical release, the poll also suggested that a large portion of vinyl buyers don't listen to their purchases. 48% of the surveyed music fans revealed that they haven't listened to the last record they bought of those ‘non-music fans,’ 7% did not own a turntable!

Like all polls or surveys, this doesn’t represent the whole of the vinyl community in Britain, but it does show us that the boom of streaming sites and the vinyl industry over paid digital content and CDs is a relationship that is mutually beneficial.