2008: Music Sales In Review
Jan1112:05 PM
Filed in: Music News
Not surprisingly, overall album sales continued to drop in Canada. In 2008, 40.6 million units were sold, a drop of 8.5 per cent from the previous year (the US posted a similar decrease).
Sales of digital tracks, however, were up 58 per cent to 40.7 million units, helping to boost overall music sales by 11.5 per cent over 2007.
Another interesting digital tidbit from 2008 is that Nine Inch Nails produced the bestselling MP3 album of 2008 at Amazon.com, even though the music could be had for free. Reznor actually sold more copies of the Ghosts I-IV albums through Amazon's MP3 store than did any other act in 2008, including Coldplay and hundreds of others, and he did it by giving the music away and selling it online simultaneously.
Fans are beginning to understood that purchasing MP3s directly support the music and career of a musician they like, even though they can download the exact same thing for free. Proof that fans will support work that matters to them.
Licensing music for free might not take over the world in 2009—no other act in Amazon's list did so, though Radiohead (#11) did. Still, it's encouraging to see examples of artists making a living without having to adopt a confrontational approach to fans. Under Reznor's model, everyone wins.
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