Not One Album Released In 2014 Has Gone Platinum

The future of music sales may be bleaker than we thought. 2014 is now 10 months old and not one album released this year has gone platinum.  By comparison, at this point last year, 5 albums had gone platinum. The only album to reach 1 million in sales this year has been the Frozen soundtrack, which was released in 2013.  In fact, this year's two other top sellers – Eric Curch and Lorde – we released last year and have still sold well under 1 million.

Single sales are not much better. In 2014 only 60 songs have sold more than a million copies,compared to 83 in 2013. 

While happening faster than expected, the drop comes as streaming music use enters the main stream.  But streaming revenue is not making up the difference and along with free plans, Spotify just effectively lowered its Premium pricing by 50% with a new Family Plan and Apple is reportedly pushing labels to lower fees.

Sources: Forbes, Billboard