Record Store Day, Pink Floyd’s or Daft Punk's? The most popular vinyl albums, revealed

Vinyl records and turntables have seen a surge in demand in the last few years. While many find themselves drawn to the unmatched sound of a record, others enjoy collecting the albums of their favourite artists.

In celebration of the upcoming Record Store Day taking place on Saturday, April 23rd 2022, money.co.uk was interested to find the most popular albums and artists on vinyl. Money.co.uk web-scraped music database Discogs.com to find the 100 most-owned vinyl, they then established a popularity score for each album based on the number of people who own the album and those who want it. 

The 15 most popular vinyl albums of all time

Ranking

Vinyl album

Popularity score /10

1

Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here (LP)

9.06

2

Daft Punk, Random Access Memories (2xLP, 180)

8.63

3

Pink Floyd, The Wall (2xLP, San)

8.53

4

Pink Floyd, The Dark Side Of The Moon (LP, RE, RM, 180)

8.35

5

Michael Jackson, Thriller (LP, Pit)

8.28

6=

The Beatles, Abbey Road (LP)

8.23

6=

The Beatles, Let It Be (LP, Win)

8.23

8

David Bowie, The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars (LP, RE, RM, RP, 180)

8.17

9

The Beatles, Magical Mystery Tour (LP, Los)

8.05

10

Nirvana, Nevermind (LP, RE, 180)

7.93

11

Queen, A Night At The Opera (LP, Emb)

7.89

12

Kendrick Lamar, Good Kid, M. A. A. d City (2 x LP, Dlx)

7.79

13

Pink Floyd, The Dark Side Of The Moon (LP, Gat)

7.74

14

Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here (LP, RE, RM, 180)

7.47

15

Radiohead, In Rainbows (LP, 180)

7.46

* means joint in ranking

Money.co.uk can reveal that the most popular vinyl album of all time is Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here”, scoring an overall 9.06/10. The album is owned by an estimated 22,802 music lovers around the world and is desired by over 11,000 onsite users. Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” and the reissued and remastered “The Dark Side Of The Moon” 180 gram vinyl also make the top 10, placing third and fourth respectively.  

Second is Daft Punk’s double album “Random Access Memories”, gaining an overall score of 8.63/10. There are over 18,000 Discogs.com fans wanting to get their hands on the album, while over 51,000 people currently own the record.

Michael Jackson’s 1982 LP ‘Thriller’ is in fifth position with a popularity score of 8.28/10. This album was notable for all songs charting in the top 10 in the US Billboard Hot 100 as well as Jackson’s first number one album in the US Billboard Top LPs & Tapes chart.

Rounding off the list in 15th place is Radiohead with their 180 gram LP “In Rainbows”, with an overall popularity score of 7.46/10.

The 10 most popular artists of all time

Ranking

Artist

Number of people who own their vinyl

1

The Beatles

3,369,578

2

Pink Floyd

2,815,586

3

David Bowie

2,178,928

4

Led Zeppelin

1,879,600

5

Queen

1,311,065

6

The Rolling Stones

1,097,877

7

Nirvana

1,075,811

8

The Smiths

998,687

9

AC/DC

957,002

10

Elvis Presley

934,547

The Beatles are crowned as the most popular artists with over 3 million Discogs.com music lovers owning a copy of their albums. 

Salman Haqqi, personal finance expert at money.co.uk, commented on the findings …

“With the surge in vinyl sales around the world, the increasing appeal of these collectables has certainly piqued the interest of the younger generation. Although it is fun and thrilling to delve into the world of turntables, getting your hands on your favourite artist’s vinyl can often be tricky and sometimes pricey.“

Here are a few tips to help find rare vinyl albums at the best price and quality

  • Purchasing second-hand, Vintage record stores or flea markets can be goldmines for great vinyl albums. By visiting in person there's a greater chance to negotiate prices and check the condition yourself. You could also visit an online store, although you would need to rely purely on the description of the listing

  • Double check the condition, It is not very often that you find a second-hand record in pristine condition. First check the quality of the album by inspecting the surface for scratches or indentations, and the sleeve and any inserts for tears or discolouration. If visiting a store, ask to play the record first before purchasing and take note of how the record sounds

  • The Goldmine Grading Guide, For a more thorough check, you can follow the Goldmine Grading Guide which helps not only sellers but also buyers to distinguish a high quality record according to its assigned standard grades.

Methodology

  1. Money.co.uk wanted to find the most popular vinyl albums and artists of all time.

  2. To do this, Discogs.com — a music database and marketplace, was scraped to obtain data for 1.3 million vinyl listings.

  3. From this, the top 100 most “owned” vinyl albums were gathered. The number of people who ‘want’ each album was also noted for the research.

  4. Utilising the number who “own” and the number who “want” each of the 100 albums, the Percentrank and Vlookup functions on Excel were then implemented to each album to apply an overall average popularity score for each.

  5. The popularity score is also calculated using the popularity of the artist themselves (based on the data on the total number of ‘want’ and ‘have’ for each artist). For example, although Daft Punk’s “Random Access Memories” has more wants, Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” album is higher in the rankings as they are a more popular artist ultimately bringing their score up.

  6. Lastly, the total average scores were multiplied by 10 to give each album a final score out of 10 and ranked, the higher the score, the more popular the album.

  7. In order to find the most popular artists, a comprehensive list of artists were compiled from the data and they were ranked based on the number of people who own their vinyl albums. 

* Each album reflects different formats, the full description of the album codes and format can be found here: https://www.discogs.com/help/formatslist. 

Credit: https://www.money.co.uk/credit-cards