Vinyl sales up by over 50 per cent since David Bowie’s death last January to highest level in 25 years

VINYL record sales leapt to their highest level in 25 years last year.

More than 3.2million LPs were sold, a rise of 53 per cent on 2015, and the highest annual total since 1991, when Simply Red’s Stars was the best-selling album.

David Bowie’s death last January led to him becoming the best-selling vinyl artist of 2016, with five albums featuring in the top 30.

Blackstar, shortlisted for a Mercury Prize, was the most popular, while fans also bought The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust, Hunky Dory, Nothing Has Changed and Changesonebowie.

It marks the ninth consecutive year that vinyl sales have grown, a far cry from just 200,000 albums sold in 2007.

Vinyl now accounts for nearly five per cent of the albums market, according to the British Phonographic Industry.

At least 30 titles sold more than 10,000 copies in 2016, compared with just ten the year before.

The music industry as a whole is booming, with 123million albums or their equivalent either streamed, bought or downloaded in 2016, up 1.5 per cent.

Total sales in 2016 were worth an estimated £1billion.

Streaming services have also rocketed 500 per cent since 2013 to 45billion last year, equating to over 1,500 streams for every household in the UK.

December saw audio streams hit one billion in a single week for the first time.

The surge demonstrated the growth of streaming as the UK's format of choice, with it now accounting for more than a third of our music consumption.

But while streaming and vinyl saw marked increases, sales of CDs were down by more than 10 per cent.

Geoff Taylor, chief executive of BPI and the Brit Awards, said: "Growth in UK music consumption in 2016 was fuelled by the explosive rise in audio streaming, which has increased 500% since 2013, and relative resilience from physical formats.

“Led by sales of David Bowie, demand for vinyl jumped to levels not seen since the start of the Nineties"