Almost a century after the first long-playing record was pressed, it seems that vinyl is still spinnin’. A new report from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) yesterday revealed that people in the US bought a collective 43 million vinyl records last year — some 6 million more units than the number of CDs sold, marking the second year running that the vintage format has won out.
While streaming remains king, making up ~84% of US recorded music revenues, vinyl sales still raked in an estimated $1.4bn, compared with just $537m for less pricey CD formats.
With sales peaking in the late 1970s, before it was dethroned by CDs/cassettes in the 80s and throughout the 90s and 00s, vinyl’s popularity has seen a resurgence over the past decade, in no small part because of its modern day consumer advantage over other mediums: the “cool factor”.
But, hipsters aside, the recent uptick can also be attributed to vinyl records breaking into the mainstream, with Kendrick Lamar, Harry Styles, and Lana Del Rey all releasing their latest albums on wax — as well as megastar Taylor Swift, whose album 1989 (Taylor's Version) was the best-selling vinyl LP of 2023, making up 7% of all US vinyl album sales last year.
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The most popular male and female names in the US, according to the latest Census
New data published Tuesday by the US Census Bureau has revealed the most common names provided in the 2020 Census, in the first release to include forename data since 1990.
As described in the brief, Michael was the most popular name for males in the US, with roughly 3.5 million American men reporting having this name or a close variant. This is up from fourth place in the 1990 Census, when the top US male name was James — though there were still 3 million Jameses in 2020’s tally.
Despite a three-decade gap, Mary remained the top name for American females in both censuses, with the 2020 survey counting almost 1.8 million females with this given name. Interestingly, Mary was one of just two predominantly female names that broke the top 10 given names in the US, with the overall list dominated mostly by male monikers.
In all, American females had far more first-name diversity than male counterparts: 16% of US males had one of the top 10 most frequent names among men, compared with 7.8% of women. Zooming out, almost 3x as many given names were needed to cover a quarter of the US female population than that of males.
6 months after hiking Game Pass prices by 50%, Xbox determines it may be too expensive
Microsoft’s new Xbox chief, Asha Sharma, thinks the division’s recent price hikes have been a mistake, per an internal memo to employees seen by The Verge.
“Short term, Game Pass has become too expensive for players, so we need a better value equation,” Sharma’s memo reportedly read.
It’s an interesting take, given that Xbox hiked the price of its Game Pass subscription by 50% in October, before Sharma took over. The memo is a signal that Sharma’s tenure — which began in February, taking the industry by surprise — will include some big changes for Microsoft’s gaming strategy.
Whether Game Pass prices will drop is not yet clear. Last month, The Information reported that Sharma and Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters have “kicked around ideas” about potential bundles. That would fit with Netflix’s renewed gaming ambitions.
It’s an interesting take, given that Xbox hiked the price of its Game Pass subscription by 50% in October, before Sharma took over. The memo is a signal that Sharma’s tenure — which began in February, taking the industry by surprise — will include some big changes for Microsoft’s gaming strategy.
Whether Game Pass prices will drop is not yet clear. Last month, The Information reported that Sharma and Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters have “kicked around ideas” about potential bundles. That would fit with Netflix’s renewed gaming ambitions.
Roblox announces age-based accounts for young users as child safety lawsuits pile up
Roblox on Monday announced its first accounts created specifically for young children and teens, furthering its efforts to increase child safety on the platform.
In June, Roblox Kids (for ages 5 to 8) and Roblox Select (for ages 9 to 15) will roll out, following the company’s global launch of mandatory age checks in January.
The new account types will feature different default settings — chats will automatically be set to “off” on Kids accounts — and limit access to games of certain ratings depending on age.
Child safety lawsuits and social media bans are piling up for Roblox, whose shares have dropped more than 30% year to date. In February, Los Angeles County sued the platform, alleging it created a “largely unsupervised online world” in which “child predators can readily locate, contact, and interact with minors.”
The new account types will feature different default settings — chats will automatically be set to “off” on Kids accounts — and limit access to games of certain ratings depending on age.
Child safety lawsuits and social media bans are piling up for Roblox, whose shares have dropped more than 30% year to date. In February, Los Angeles County sued the platform, alleging it created a “largely unsupervised online world” in which “child predators can readily locate, contact, and interact with minors.”