Music

Jack White's new album broke a vinyl sales record

by Tyler Munro

Jack White’s Lazaretto seems to be succeeding on the merits of its gimmicky LP as much as its music, but apparently that’s more than enough—according to his website, White’s new album has set the sales record for most LPs sold in its first week after 40,000 copies of the Ultra LP flew off the shelves last week.

Of course there’s a caveat: Nielsen Soundscan only started tracking vinyl sales data in 1991, when LPs were dying a slow death at the hands of CDs and cassettes, but the number’s still impressive. Sure, it’s no Dark Side of the Moon, but if we’ll celebrate any time people buy records. And while some of its gimmicks are either unplayable or potentially damaging to your turntable—sorry, people who own motor driven, linear tracking record player—the rest range from harmless and clever to downright cool.