Gen Z is driving the surge in Australian vinyl record sales as it embraces physical media and disconnects from streaming, according to experts.
The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) has reported an 8.8 per cent increase in physical media (records, CDs, music videos and DVDs) sales from 2024 to 2025. It ‘s data shows total vinyl record sales increased since 2016 by 305 per cent.
“[People] want some degree of intimacy and focus, the same reason why people have those bricks they put their phone on, or still buy books, or go to the movies,” said Nic Warnock, a co-owner of Newtown’s Repressed Records. “I think it’s just a way that people actually connect with stuff more … and are kind of making choices in their own listening.
ARIA Yearly Dollar Amount Sales of Vinyl in Australia (2016-2025)
ARIA vinyl sales growth 2016-2025. Visualisation: Harry Craigie
Streaming services boast over 12.5 million active accounts in Australia and have been incorporated into many listeners identities.
“People like to touch things, hold things, own things. It’s a statement of who you are, what you own as well,” said Matt Huddy, manager of Red Eye Records in Sydney’s CBD, adding he has long noticed the vinyl revival movement as record demand has steadily increased for over a decade.
“Fifteen years ago we’d seen increases, even, a few years before that.”
Last year marked the first year since 1983 that the US saw over $1 billion in vinyl record sales, according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). This figure makes up nearly 50 per cent of global vinyl sales for 2025, a 9.3 per cent increase from the year before.
America isn’t alone in what is being coined as the “vinyl revival”. Australia has experienced similar growth in physical music sales over the last decade despite the global rise of streaming services.
Baccara’s 1977 self-titled album. Photo: Harry Craigie.
Live Nation, the world’s largest live entertainment company, has just released its most comprehensive study on Gen Z yet, called ‘Love Song’.
The annual report surveyed a total of 5,692 Australians, including 1,411 Gen Z participants.
“[About] 84 per cent of Gen Z are increasingly selective about where they focus their attention, seeking deeper, more meaningful real-world connections than any other generation,” found Live Nation.
Warnock, similar to Huddy, has observed the attitudes around record collecting, with the physical nature of records being a large part of what pushes the connection between artists and fans.
Live Nation refers to this connection as ‘fandom’.
The word represents the growing sentiment around physical music sales. In reporting for 2026, Live Nation notes self-expression is a key part of listeners’ connection with an artist. Participants voiced their ongoing desire for physical merchandise, with posters and autographs also making comebacks.
For many listeners, the desire for self-expression is complimentary to their streaming habits. According to Live Nation, listeners, especially Gen Z, rely on curated spaces such as playlists, events and creators to navigate culture.
Streaming dominates music format sales. Visualisation by Harry Craigie.
Music streaming still remains on top across the industry and holds its place as an important part of music discovery.
“I think people use that to test the waters for what they want to buy as well,” said Huddy.
“Like in the olden days, you couldn’t do that. You listened to the radio, you saw it on the television, and you just had to go, okay, well, I like two songs from this album, hopefully I like the rest.
“But now [audiences] can check the whole album and they’ve got a better idea of what they’re buying.”
Lachlan Holland, music coordinator and host of ‘Mighty Reel’ at community radio station 2SER, is a vinyl collector himself and understands how physical music interaction differs from streaming service use.
“The phrase is ‘intentional listening’. It’s not part of the background while you’re commuting, you’ve bought this, you love this music, you experience it, and you know the effort that went into [making] it and the cost,” he said.
“It’s probably the one thing I have the most of, more than clothes, more than food sometimes, I definitely love records.”
Huddy wasn’t optimistic about listeners leaving streaming services behind for analog forms of music.
Platforms like Spotify have been very on the nose, for quite a while, partly because of the revenue distribution.
“I don’t think that will ever happen, it’s too convenient. Most of our customers would have a free Spotify account at least,” he said, adding it’s not to say artists aren’t shying away from moving their content off streaming services themselves.
“Platforms like Spotify have been very on the nose, for quite a while, partly because of the revenue distribution,” Holland said.
“The things that came out about Spotify, particularly their investment in arms technology, probably didn’t sit well too well with most musicians.”
In July of 2025, Australian band, King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard, left Spotify after reports of the company’s co-founders investing heavily in military technology.
Other large names followed in the band’s footsteps.
Massive Attack, Deerhoof, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor completely removed their discography and took to Instagram, issuing public statements asking their record labels to remove them from the platform.
Many of these bands illustrate the ‘fandom’ that Live Nation describes. Listeners were quick to jump on other platforms to get their fix of their favourite artists. Shortly after King Gizzard’s departure from the world’s largest music streaming platform, they climbed the charts of streaming website Bandcamp, where they used a ‘name your price’ model for their music.
Streaming’s continued run of success for global listeners can be seen through the vinyl sales of last year, with four of the top sellers being new releases or reissues that saw similar success across streaming platforms.
Visualisation by Harry Craigie.
“I went to a seminar in America last year where they talked about the ‘Taylor factor’,” Huddy said, describing the effect Taylor Swift loyalists have over the record market and the sales that followed the release of her latest album Life of a Showgirl last October. “She sells really, really well for us.
“If you take her out of the equation, vinyl sales still grew, even though they didn’t grow as much, because we weren’t selling a new Taylor Swift album, there was still growth in the market.”
Main image by Harry Craigie.
