For the first time since 2004, US album sales rose 3%. Just how many albums were sold in 2011? Nearly 500 Million, clocking in at 458 Million total. The decline of CD sales has had many record companies and execs concerned, though consumers are still listening to music. The difference is in simply how they are consuming the music.
Digital music has exploded over the years and while physical CD sales decline, that just means people are buying online versus offline nowadays. Of the 458 Million albums sold Worldwide, there’s a few artists who stand out among the crowd, artists that you’re likely familiar with.
Adele who absolutely exploded the past year, sold an astounding 5.8 Million albums of her “21” while also selling nearly 1 Million copies, 856,000 to be exact, of her album “19”. Michael Buble did exceptionally well with his “Christmas” album, clocking in at 2.5 Million sold.
Of course, who can forget Lady Gaga who also went double platinum with “Born This Way” which sold 2.1 Million copies. Associated Press has even more details:
“Digital album sales rose nearly 20 percent to 103 million, while CDs fell nearly 6 percent to 225 million. The rest of the total is made up largely of digital single tracks, where 10 tracks are counted as one album. Digital singles sales rose nearly 9 percent to 1.27 billion.”
The reality is that music sold via physical means, will continue to decline as we continue to shift into a more digital society. This isn’t necessarily something for record companies to be concerned about as many are making a killing through digital sales. Money is money and people will spend that money to listen to the music they want and use the means which best serves their needs.