During 2019, streaming accounted for 79.5% of all recorded music revenues.

The U.S. music industry is booming for the fourth year in a row reflecting double-digit growth mostly supported by streaming.

With total revenues growing 19.9% to $8.8 billion in 2019, accounting for 79.5% of all recorded music revenues, the streaming category is fireman-carrying the music industry, which seemed to struggle before the arrival of streaming services in 2016. Now, with such a wide variety of formats, including premium subscription services, ad-supported on-demand services like Spotify and streaming radio services such as Pandora, streaming last year brought in more revenue than the entire recorded music industry in 2017, per the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

The RIAA report adds that total 2019 subscription revenues of $6.8 billion were up 25% versus the prior year, and accounted for 61% of total recorded music revenues in the U.S. That total includes $829 million in revenues from “Limited Tier” paid subscriptions (services limited by factors such as mobile access, catalog availability, on-demand limitations, or device restrictions). Services like Amazon Prime, Pandora Plus, and other subscriptions are included in this category.

Nostalgia sells

Revenues from physical products in 2019 were down slightly year-over-year at $1.15 billion (down 0.6%). A decline of 12% in revenues from CDs to $615 mil, however, a 19% increase to $504 million from vinyl records was also reported, showing the category’s biggest year since 1988, by the way, and a 14-year mark of of growth for vinyl albums, although vinyl sales only represents 4.5% of total revenues for the music industry.

Data provided to CNBC by eBay shows that sales of new and used vinyl have been steadily increasing over the past decade. Sales increased by 55.8% from 2010 to 2011, and then 131.8% from 2011 to 2012. Furthermore, there was an 18.5% year-over-year increase in sales of new vinyl from 2016 to 2017.