Confirming trends that have been in place for years now, it seems that the market for music has changed forever:
NASHVILLE, July 4 (AP) — Album sales have continued their downward slide this year, but sales of digital tracks are up almost 50 percent over this time last year.
A total of 229.8 million albums were sold in the United States from Jan. 1 to July 1, according to Nielsen SoundScan figures released Wednesday. That is a 15 percent decrease over the same period last year. Sales of digital tracks increased 49 percent, to 417.3 million this year.
The decrease in album sales becomes only 9.2 percent, however, if digital singles are bundled together and counted as albums.
Well that’s sort of cheating isn’t it ?
