Happy Vinyl Record Day. Observed every year on August 12th, the unofficial holiday commemorates the anniversary of Thomas Edison's invention of the phonograph in 1877. According to its founder, the annual celebration was created for the "preservation of the cultural influence, the recordings and the cover art of the vinyl record".

If you grew up in the 60's or 70's, chances are, your first musical memories were listening to vinyl. Over the years, actual albums gave way to cassettes, then compact disks, then digital downloads. However, the popularity of vinyl has been steadily increasing for the past decade.

According to Billboard, sales of vinyl albums have skyrocketed by 260% since 2009. In 2014, more than 9.2 million vinyl units were sold in the United States; up from 6.1 million the previous year. What's more, vinyl sales increased another 53% in the first quarter of 2015.

 

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