A qualitative study of the audience for physical music.
Almost every song ever recorded is now available instantly online.
Streaming accounts for 89.3% of UK recorded-music consumption. Yet physical music continues to grow.
People don’t need physical music any more.
So why do they want it?
of UK recorded-music consumption is streaming.
vinyl LPs sold in 2025.
vinyl unit growth in 2025.
vinyl revenue growth in 2025.
of consecutive vinyl growth.
of physical music sales now happen in bricks-and-mortar record shops, up from 31.7% in 2021.
independent record shops in the UK in 2025, up 28 in a year.
CDs of Taylor Swift’s The Life Of A Showgirl sold in the UK in 2025, the most for any album on the format since Adele’s 30 in 2021.
attracting a new generation of buyers attracted by the IRL experience
A fast-turnaround pilot, delivered free of charge. In return, we’d ask for permission to name HMV and write up the work as a Gatherer case study. And, if we do a great job, for a testimonial too.
One tightly defined question:
We’ll speak to 12–15 physical music buyers, intentionally varied across age, format, genre, and level of fandom.
We recommend a small budget for participant incentives - a £10 HMV voucher for each interview (usually 30-50 mins). Interviews are recorded and transcribed with consent, so every quote and insight can be traced back to its source. The interactive report is yours to use across HMV however you like.
Not just age and demographics.
What different kinds of physical music buyer are beginning to emerge, and what distinguishes them?
What are people actually buying beyond the music itself: ownership, identity, memory, fandom, ritual, status, community?
How do behaviours change across genres, scenes, and fan communities?
What is worth owning in one world that isn’t in another?
Where does discovery happen? When does listening become fandom? And what eventually makes an artist or album worth owning?
We’ll map how this journey differs for each kind of buyer.
Where else do people discover, discuss, and buy music?
What role does HMV play now, and what could it credibly own?
Who loves music, attends gigs, and buys merch but doesn’t yet buy physical music?
What might change that?
Two starting points. Two relationships with physical music.
“Why do you buy physical music when you can listen to the same music instantly online?”
“Think about the last record or CD you bought. How did you go from first discovering it to deciding you wanted to own it?”
“Where does HMV fit into your music world today, and what would make you go there more often?”
Two people. Two relationships with physical music.
Already, different questions emerge.
The pilot is designed to work towards thematic saturation: the point at which additional conversations stop producing substantial new themes around a tightly defined question.
Landmark academic studies suggest that around 12–16 conversations can be enough to identify the main themes within a relatively focused audience.
As the population becomes more varied, and the questions span different groups, the number needed increases.
That’s why 12–15 conversations gives us enough depth to explore a tightly defined question and begin identifying recurring themes.
But if five or six distinct audiences begin to emerge, we’ll need to go deeper.
A second phase would follow the strongest signals, building enough depth within each priority audience to understand what distinguishes them, and adapting the sample as the picture develops.
An illustration of the idea, not study data.
Sample sizes would be guided by the audiences emerging from the pilot and evidence of thematic saturation, rather than fixed in advance.
The pilot won’t tell us everything about the physical music audience.
It will help us to decide where it’s worth looking next.
If distinct audiences, behaviours, or music worlds begin to emerge, we can build the next phase around the ones that matter most to HMV.
Who they are, and what distinguishes them.
How physical culture changes across genres, scenes, and communities.
The role of ownership, collecting, identity, memory, ritual, and fandom.
How discovery becomes fandom and fandom becomes something worth owning.
Where different audiences discover, follow, and talk about music.
Where the brand sits within those worlds, and where it could move next.
The people on the edge of physical ownership and what could bring them in.
Meet people alongside the music and objects that matter to them.
Talk to customers while they’re actually browsing and buying.
Gigs, record fairs, scenes, and communities.
Follow fandom into the digital spaces where it forms.
The people we need to meet, and the questions we need to ask them, will become clearer as the pilot develops.
So we’ll start with 12–15.
Listen properly. See what emerges.
