Music Singles Outsell Full Albums

Is the fact that singles outsell full albums much of a surprise to anyone? This year to date, over 417.3 million tracks have been sold alone… a truly difficult number to grasp. You think such sales would be great for the music industry, but lack of actual album sales isn’t anything to be proud of.

The blame could be put on any number of things. How many times did you bring a new CD home only to figure out that the song that inspired a purchase is the only one worth your time? Too many times, at least in my case. Even still, I regularly buy CD’s and hope to see sales once again increase. That said, every punk fan should pick up the new Bad Religion album, “New Maps of Hell”. I guarantee it’s worth your time. I am biased, but this has been a great year for punk music thus far.

Albums look to be headed into a serious decline, however. In 2006, album sales were also down, but in the same period year-over-year, the shrinkage was only 4 percent. This year’s decline, so far, appears to show a quickening decline, slipping to 15 percent fewer sales.

Source: Ars Technica