A major American lacquer disc provider was lost to fire on January 7th, 2020, threatening the world’s supply of vinyl records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Apollo Masters<\/a> was one of two facilities that produced acetate discs<\/a> in the world, the other being in Japan. But experts from the record pressing industry have told Billboard<\/a> that the real effects of this loss won’t be known for some time, although a “major hindrance” is predicted due to the Japanese producer’s current backlog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vinyl record sales had recently surged worldwide so some members of the industry are worried that this may cause the sales to drop, as the labels struggle to manufacture and release their recordings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the United States alone, sales of LPs and EPs had grown by 7.9% to US$419.2 million in 2018 according to the Recording Industry Association of America<\/a>. And here in Canada, we saw a 3.1% increase in sales in 2019, to 973,891 vinyl albums sold according to Nielsen<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There should probably be no delays for most Record Store Day<\/a> releases this April 18th. But next year’s selections could be slim, unfortunately. <\/p>\n\n\n\n