Year To Date Album Sales Up 3%, Tracks Up 11%
For the 18th week in a row year-to-date album volume is greater than the prior year. Year-to-date album and track sales are up 3% and 11%, respectively, compared with last year, according to Nielson Soundscan figures shared by NARM.
“Legendary singer Tony Bennett made history this week when he became the oldest living musician to debut at the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200, and his accomplishment has fueled another week of solid growth for music sales,” said Jim Donio, President of NARM, the music business association. “
Some strong releases helped. So did the accelerating shift from physical goods to digital. But 18 weeks is long enough to feel like a trend.
What do you think? Are fans bying music again?
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People support good art. Regardless of record executives who get pissed over their inability to rape artists and fans for multi-million dollar pay checks by churning out crap cookie cutter music (and blaming it on “pirates”-argh!), if something is original and of quality, the people will buy. Lady Gaga, Foo Fighters, Chickenfoot are all recent examples of turning executive greed theories upside down.
These sales figures have some interesting numbers in them once you dig down into them. #1 is that fans are seeking new music and once again stores are that place where it happens.
To the extent that new music keeps showing up on stores shelves IMHO it will have a direct impact on the industry. This falls directly on the independents to continure to release physical.
There is a second number that will start to increase and that is exports of physical entertainment. Without physical releases from indie’s and the majors continued haliburtionization of the industry our exports would continure to go down the toilet as then have been doing for years.
I also want to say that at the track that VINYL is being ramped up that we could see it over 3 percent of total of units sold with some awesome release in time for Christmas.